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BAHRAIN / WAM Investcorp announced that it acquired 11 new US multifamily properties. The portfolio totals 2,615 units for a combined purchase price of approximately $370 million. The acquisition marks Investcorp’s largest US real estate portfolio acquisition co- mpleted in the past decade. “This diversified acquisition marks very exciting milestone for our real estate investment team as this is the …

Bloomberg After days of wrangling over the wording of a communique, finance chiefs from the world’s largest economies warned that escalating trade and geopolitical tensions pose the biggest risk to global growth. Officials said that although growth appears to be stabilising, it “remains low and risks remain tilted to the downside,” according to the statement. “Most importantly, trade and geopolitical …

Dubai / Emirates Business The headline seasonally adjusted Emirates NBD UAE Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) — a composite indicator designed to give an accurate overview of operating conditions in the non-oil private sector economy — rose to 59.4 in May from 57.6 in April. This was the third successive monthly increase in the index, with the latest reading signalling a …

Bloomberg Hedge funds kept running away from oil as prices tumbled into a bear market. They cut bets on West Texas Intermediate crude’s rally to the lowest level in 12 weeks, according to data. Optimism on Brent crude, the global benchmark, declined by the most this year. WTI reached bear territory, dropping more than 20 percent from its April high …

Bloomberg Finance chiefs gathered in Fukuoka, Japan, for meetings of the Group of 20 are wrangling over language on how to describe global trade disputes in a communique that is to be published at the meeting’s conclusion. A fifth draft version of the statement seen by Bloomberg News referenced the need for a ‘pressing need to resolve trade tensions’ amid …

LONDON / WAM The Executive Director of the International Energy Agency (IEA) said Europe saved $8 billion on its natural gas bill last year because surging US shale production and a shake-up in EU energy markets forced Russia to change its gas pricing mechanism. Fatih Birol, speaking as the IEA released its annual gas report, said 2018 was a “golden …

Bloomberg Royal Dutch Shell Plc plans to shower its investors in money, pledging returns of $125 billion between 2021 and 2025 — twice as much as a decade earlier. The oil and gas major says it can pull off this feat with crude at $60 a barrel and only a small increase in capital spending, an aggressive move to keep …

Bloomberg China Three Gorges Corp. is weighing a deal to gain cont-rol of EDP-Energias de Portugal SA’s Brazilian business, people with knowledge of the matter said. State-owned Three Gorges is considering merging its own Brazilian assets with EDP’s operations in the South American country, which are run through publicly-traded EDP-Energias do Brasil SA, according to the people. Three Gorges may …

Bloomberg Russia’s average daily oil output in May fell below its Opec+ target for the first time this year after buyers refused to take exports via Druzhba, the nation’s key pipeline to Europe, because of contamination. The country produced just more than 47 million ton-nes of crude oil and condensate in May, according to preliminary data from the Energy Ministry’s …

Bloomberg President Donald Trump claims China is paying his tariffs; furniture salesman Mack Yuan in the east-coast commercial heartland of Zhejiang begs to differ. “We don’t pay any tariffs,” says Yuan, whose company Dakang Holdings Co sells about half its products to the US, including to Walmart Inc and Costco Wholesale Corp. The impact of Trump’s tariff hike on $200 …