CAIRO / Reuters Beltone Financial, Egypt’s largest asset manager, said on Tuesday it had acquired 60 percent of New York-based brokerage firm Auerbach Grayson & Company. Beltone has 30 billion Egyptian pounds ($3.38 billion) in assets under management and has executed over 100 billion pounds in M&A and capital markets transactions. It was acquired by billionaire businessman Naguib Sawiris’s ...
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Yemen central bank crisis raises new famine fears
Reuters Intensive care wards in Yemen’s hospitals are filled with emaciated children hooked up to monitors and drips – victims of food shortages that could get even worse due to a reorganisation of the central bank that is worrying importers. With food ships finding it hard to get into Yemen’s ports due to a virtual blockade by the Saudi-led ...
Read More »Brexit won’t impact Asia much: WB
Singapore / AFP Britain’s shock decision to leave the European Union will not be as damaging to developing Asia’s economies as feared, the World Bank said Wednesday as it increased its growth forecast for the region this year. Countries in the Mekong region led by Myanmar are projected to expand at the fastest pace in the next three years, ...
Read More »Sompo to buy NY-listed firm for $6.3 billion
Tokyo / AFP Sompo Holdings said on Wednesday it would buy Bermuda-based Endurance Specialty Holdings for $6.3 billion, becoming the latest Japanese firm to make an overseas acquisition as it faces slowing growth at home. The all-cash deal for New York-listed Endurance, which has a strong presence in the lucrative US market, is expected to be completed by the end ...
Read More »1MDB scam involved ‘Ponzi scheme’
Geneva / AFP Switzerland said on Wednesday it had widened its probe into Malaysia’s scandal-tainted state investment fund, 1MDB, with transactions worth $800 million under scrutiny and evidence pointing to fraud through “a Ponzi scheme”. The Swiss attorney general opened an investigation into the troubled 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) in August 2015 following allegations that some of the money ...
Read More »Samsung’s bio-drug unit to raise $2bn in upcoming IPO
Seoul / AFP Samsung’s drug-manufacturing unit plans to raise as much as $2.0 billion in November with what looks set to be South Korea’s third-largest initial public offering (IPO). Samsung Biologics, a contract manufacturer of biotech drugs for global pharmaceutical firms, had announced the IPO plan back in April — with parent Samsung Group seeking new growth engines as ...
Read More »India’s home auctioneers raise gavel on unwanted goods
New Delhi / AFP On a scorching rooftop in a smart neighbourhood in the Indian capital, 40 Delhiites with an eye for a bargain peer over auction tables creaking with used, broken and half-eaten items, the front line of a thriving second-hand economy. The auctioneer’s voice rises to a frenzied pitch as the numbers soar higher, each item wielded ...
Read More »Taiwan to improve fishing fleet conditions
NEW TAIPEI CITY / AP Commercial fishing boat owners in Taiwan, one of the world’s biggest seafood exporters, face strict rules and potential fines under a new law aimed at preventing overfishing and protecting migrant crewmembers who work far at sea with little oversight. The Distant Water Fisheries Act, which takes effect Jan. 15, 2017, comes amid growing pressure ...
Read More »British PM faces immigration backlash in tough Brexit talk
Birmingham / AFP Prime Minister Theresa May threw down the Brexit gauntlet to Brussels on Wednesday in a speech calling for “maximum freedom” in Europe’s single market despite a backlash against her hard line on immigration. May’s address to the Conservative party conference came as the pound plunged on currency markets and amid growing criticism of proposals to make ...
Read More »UK has four red lines in Brexit negotiations
Bloomberg Prime Minister Theresa May’s government has ruled out paying contributions to the European Union budget to allow British companies access to the single market, according to a senior aide to Brexit Secretary David Davis, who gave the most specific outline yet of the U.K.’s “red lines†in the coming negotiations to leave the EU. The government’s Brexit department, ...
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