News

BAGHDAD / Reuters Iraq’s oil ministry on Monday said the nation would reduce its petroleum products imports by 25 percent as crude oil refiner­ies are being rehabilitated following fighting with IS militants. Iraq is also producing more oil products by processing natural gas liquids, Oil Minister Jabar al-Luaibi said in a statement, without indicating a specific timeframe for the import ...

DUBAI / Reuters Saudi’s Water & Electricity Co (WEC) invited proposals to develop Jubail Phase 3, an integrated water desalination and power plant in the country’s Eastern Province, according to a tender posted on its website. The project, which an industry source estimated to be worth about $5bn, is expected to generate 1.17mn cubic metres of water per day and ...

Bloomberg Grab, the dominant ride-hailing service in Southeast Asia, is close to finalising a deal to acquire Uber Technologies Inc.’s business in the region and may sign a deal this week or next, according to people familiar with the matter. Under terms of the proposed agreement, Grab would buy out Uber’s operations in certain markets in Southeast Asia and Uber ...

Bloomberg Singapore Exchange Ltd. is stepping up efforts to bring technology companies to its market. The bourse last year proposed allowing dual-class shares, a structure favored by tech founders because it lets them keep control after going public. Now SGX wants to loosen some of the recommended restrictions it planned to impose on dual-class listings, such as a minimum market ...

Bloomberg Billionaire Paul Singer’s Elliott Management Corp. has bought a stake in Wipro Ltd., its first ever purchase of an Indian-based software outsourcer. The New York hedge fund acquired 1.855 million American depositary receipts, or about 0.04 percent of Wipro’s share capital, according to a filing with the US Securities & Exchange Commission. Though tiny when compared with Elliott’s stake ...

Bloomberg Blackstone Group LP says it’s found the formula for making money in India, which has become its top-performing market globally after the firm began focusing on bigger buyout deals. Over the past few years, Blackstone has started concentrating on select sectors like consumer and information technology where it expects India to see the most wealth creation, according to Senior ...

Bloomberg Dropbox Inc. aims to raise as much as $648 million in its US initial public offering. The file-sharing company is marketing 36 million shares of Class A common stock for $16 to $18 apiece, according to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday. At the high end of that range, Dropbox would have a market ...

Bloomberg The European Union’s trade chief dismissed US President Donald Trump’s threat to impose tariffs on car imports, and vowed to “stand up to bullies,” adding to signs that a widening trans-Atlantic rift over protectionism could escalate into an all-out trade war. “In some places, trade has been blamed for the pains of globalization, others use it as a scapegoat ...

Bloomberg Nafta negotiations are weighing on companies’ investment plans and both Canada and the US are hoping to make rapid progress in talks, according to Canadian Finance Minister Bill Morneau. “There are some businesses that are being cautious in investments because there is an expectation that Nafta could be slightly different tomorrow than it was yesterday,” Morneau said . “What’s ...

Bloomberg A former prime minister of Finland once blamed Apple Inc. for torpedoing two of his country’s biggest industries—mobile phones and paper mills. Now Stora Enso Oyj, one of Europe’s largest paper and packaging makers, has become a key supplier to the iPhone maker, according to documents published. The tie-up wasn’t always on the cards. In 2014, then prime minister ...