|By TAP Staff| Emaar Properties said it’s seeking to raise as much as $1.58 billion from the initial public offering of its malls unit in the UAE’s biggest IPO since 2007. Emaar Malls Group PJSC plans to sell 2 billion of its founders’ shares, or about 15 percent of its equity, in a price range of 2.5 dirhams to 2.9 dirhams apiece, according to a company statement […]
UAE. Two-thirds (66 percent) of millennial high-frequency travellers rate “unique rewards” as an important factor when choosing a hotel loyalty program, compared with just 43 percent of their older counterparts, according to a new Deloitte study, “Winning the Race for Guest Loyalty”. “Our study indicates that customers are waiting to see which program will provide them with the greatest relevant rewards before they commit to a brand, […]
INTERNATIONAL. With momentum building for international military action against Islamist extremists in Syria, the United States reiterated Friday it will not coordinate with strongman Bashar al-Assad in the effort. “The answer to the security challenges is not the Assad regime,” State Department deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf told reporters. “They have created this security vacuum. We are not going to be working with them in this fight,” she […]
SAUDI ARABIA. Banks with experience arranging Islamic bond sales may stand to benefit from the potential opening of Saudi Arabia’s debt market to foreign investors, according to the investment banking unit of Mashreqbank PSC. (MASQ) “There’ll be a lot of potential for non-Saudi banks to get involved on the advising and arranging side,” Abdul Kadir Hussain, who oversees about $700 million as chief executive officer of Mashreq […]
|By TAP Staff| Just over a year ago, China’s Xiaomi was little more than a mid-sized smartphone-maker with an odd name (Xiaomi means “millet”), trailing household brands such as Samsung, Lenovo, Coolpad and others. During the first six months of 2014, however, this four-year old company sold 26m smartphones, propelling it to pole position in the Chinese market. Next year, Lei Jun, its founder and CEO, expects […]
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said he was “extremely encouraged” by pledges of military assistance against Islamic State militants by countries inside and outside the Middle East and that some nations had offered ground troops. Kerry has been touring the Middle East to try to secure backing for U.S. efforts to build a coalition to fight the Islamic State militants who have grabbed territory in Syria […]
On the face of it, Jordan must be a tough sell to international investors: there is the ubiquitous threat of instability and violence lurking from neighboring Syria and Iraq while the kingdom’s small economy, which is reliant on foreign aid, is strained by high unemployment and budget deficits. Nonetheless, some foreign private equity groups are willing to take the risk. Buyout giant Carlyle Group last year bought […]
Jeremy Paxman, who is a quarter Scot, would have like a say in the future of the Union Photo: PA/BBC On Thursday, the English will discover what the Scots really think of them. Like the final row in a troubled marriage, it could be the event that serves to separate those we were once told God had joined together. The decision is not for those of us who […]
Secretary of State John Kerry and Sameh Shoukry, the Egyptian foreign minister, in Cairo. By MICHAEL R. GORDON and DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK September 13, 2014 CAIRO — Secretary of State John Kerry received broad assurances but no public commitments from Egypt on Saturday as he continued his tour of the Middle East to try to assemble a coalition behind an American campaign against the extremist group known as the Islamic State in Iraq […]
By RUKMINI CALLIMACHI and KIMIKO DE FREYTAS-TAMURA September 13, 2014 The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria released a video Saturday of the third beheading of a foreign hostage, a British aid worker. The execution was a clear message to Britain, a vital ally of the United States as it builds an international coalition to target the militant group, which has made stunning advances across Syria and northern Iraq in recent months. […]
Dubai retailing and restaurants group Marka will list its shares on the Dubai Financial Market (DFM) on Sept. 25 in the market’s first flotation for five years, the company said on Saturday. New share issues dried up in Dubai when its financial crisis erupted five years ago and Marka’s flotation signals a reopening of the market as investment conditions improve. Marka initially planned to list its shares […]
President Obama on Wednesday in Washington. Mr. Obama says he is aware of the “political price” he pays for being deliberate. By PETER BAKER September 13, 2014 WASHINGTON — Just hours before announcing an escalated campaign against Islamic extremists last week, President Obama privately reflected on another time when a president weighed military action in the Middle East — the frenzied weeks leading up to the American invasion of […]
Rashidul Bari was born in Bangladesh in 1979 and has been studying in the United States since 2000. He considers himself one-half servant of education and one-half writer. He has earned five bachelor’s degrees, BA in political science, BA in economics, BA in mathematics, BA in computer science and BA in physics respectively, from three different CUNY institutions: York College, City College of New York and Lehman […]
|By TAP Staff| Asia is giving expression to its growing disenchantment with the prevailing West-centred gold pricing mechanism by setting in place its own benchmarks that reflect the region’s market dynamics. China and Singapore are preparing to launch physical bullion contracts with an eye on gaining pricing power of the metal at a time when the global benchmark is under scrutiny. CME Group, the world’s leading derivatives […]
Stock index provider MSCI Inc is considering changing its rules to allow shares of Alibaba Group Holding and other companies that list their shares in faraway markets to be included in its widely used indexes. The MSCI announced that it was considering changing its rules last week, but did not explain the reason for the changes: questions from investors amid the Alibaba initial public offering, Reuters has […]
On pins and needles for your new iPhone? Prepare to wait a little longer: Apple exhausted its pre-order supply of the iPhone 6 Plus on Friday. By 9:00 a.m. EDT, the iPhone 6 Plus was listed on Apple’s U.S. online store as scheduled to ship three to four weeks after ordering. The iPhone 6 remained in stock, at least on the Apple store, with deliveries promised by […]
Verizon plans to launch an “over-the-top” digital video broadcasting service by the middle of 2015, CEO Lowell McAdam said Thursday. Speaking at Goldman Sachs’ Communacopia conference, McAdam said the service would deliver video content to wireless devices on an a la carte basis. “No one wants to have 300 channels on your wireless device,” McAdam said, according to a transcript of the talk published on the investment […]
Google has kicked off yet another program aimed at helping to develop the next big thing in tech: Google Cloud Platform for Startups. The program offers early-stage tech companies $100,000 in credit for Google’s Cloud Platform services, along with 24/7 support and technical architecture review help from Google’s engineers. The new offering was announced Friday by Urs Hölzle, Google Fellow and senior vice president of technical infrastructure, […]
Dubai Aluminium (Dubal) has held talks with banks about raising a loan to help fund its general operations, the first time the firm has commissioned such a facility in years, three banking sources told Reuters on Thursday. While it is a rarity for the company to raise money not tied to a specific project, a loan would be the latest example of a Dubai state-backed entity tapping […]
Standard Chartered Plc is in talks with potential corporate sukuk issuers from China and Hong Kong, as the city government debuts its Islamic bonds. The lender, the fourth-largest Shariah-compliant debt arranger this year, sees Hong Kong as a “very unique opportunity as a gateway to China,” Afaq Khan, the Dubai-based chief executive officer at Standard Chartered Saadiq, said in an interview. The city’s entry to the Islamic […]
Banks with experience arranging Islamic bond sales may stand to benefit from the potential opening of Saudi Arabia’s debt market to foreign investors, according to the investment banking unit of Mashreqbank. “There’ll be a lot of potential for non-Saudi banks to get involved on the advising and arranging side,” Abdul Kadir Hussain, who oversees about $700 million as chief executive officer of Mashreq Capital DIFC Ltd. in […]
There was a muted response across the Gulf region early Thursday to a decision by President Barack Obama to begin U.S. airstrikes in Syria and expand the campaign in Iraq to destroy Islamic State. Arab states of the Gulf Cooperation Council have previously expressed skepticism of U.S. rhetoric for further intervention against Islamic State, without knowing the full details of U.S. participation or the role expected of […]
Investors in Dubai continued to accumulate cash in early trade on Thursday ahead of the $1.4 billion initial public offer of Emaar Malls Group, a subsidiary of Emaar Properties, the largest listed developer in the emirate. The Dubai index fell 1.3 percent as most stocks were in the red. Emaar itself was the main drag, falling 1.8 percent as its shares no longer entitled their holders to […]
President Barack Obama told Americans on Wednesday he had authorized U.S. airstrikes for the first time in Syria and more attacks in Iraq in a broad escalation of a campaign against the Islamic State militant group. Obama’s decision to launch attacks inside Syria, which is embroiled in a three-year civil war, marked a turnabout for the president, who shied away a year ago from airstrikes to punish […]
