News

  Bloomberg The World Bank’s International Finance Corp. will invest $25 million in Egypt’s Carbon Holdings, a petrochemical producer, as part of plans to commit $2 billion in the country. The IFC will look for more ways to provide financing for Carbon Holdings, Mouayed Makhlouf, IFC director for the Middle East and North Africa, said in an interview in Dubai. ...

  Washington / AFP The “breakthrough” deal announced last Wednesday to resume handing out bailout money to Greece sounded like old times: the International Monetary Fund working with European countries again as official lenders to Athens. In the end, however, the anti-global crisis lender again refused to support Greece’s third rescue program with its own financial contribution. The IMF said ...

  Bloomberg Euro-area economic confidence rose for a second month in May as the European Central Bank prepares to present updated economic projections that could provide further clues about the impact of its stimulus programme. An index of executive and consumer sentiment increased to 104.7 from a revised 104.0 in April, the European Commission in Brussels said on Monday. That’s ...

  Frankfurt / AFP Mario Draghi may have bought himself a brief respite from the threat of deflation. The cost? More than a quarter of a trillion dollars. On Thursday, the European Central Bank president should be able to deliver his first snippet of good news for a year on his mandate. Most economists in Bloomberg’s monthly survey predict the ...

  Bloomberg The French economy grew faster than originally estimated in the first quarter, lifted by improving corporate investment. Growth accelerated to 0.6 percent, instead of the 0.5 percent estimated on April 29, France’s statistics office Insee said on Monday. That compares with a 0.4 percent increase in gross domestic product in the previous quarter. The economy expanded 1.4 percent ...

  Bloomberg Noble Group Ltd. said Yusuf Alireza resigned as chief executive officer and announced a plan to sell a business that less than a month ago Alireza himself described as a core asset the trading company wanted to keep. Alireza, 45, decided “the time was right” to leave after shifting the trader toward an asset-light model, selling its agriculture ...

  Bloomberg Gold’s on the ropes. Bullion broke below $1,200 an ounce on Monday after losing more than $100 in less than a month as Federal Reserve policy makers land punch after punch by talking up the prospects for a U.S. interest rate rise and reinvigorating the dollar. Bullion for immediate delivery lost as much as 1 percent to $1,199.80 ...

  Bloomberg Grupo BTG Pactual, the Brazilian bank that was forced to sell assets after the arrest of its founder last year, is exploring the sale of its 50 percent stake in an African joint venture with state-run oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA, according to people with knowledge of the matter. BTG has held sales talks with independent oil explorers ...

  Bloomberg Workers at South32 Ltd.’s Cerro Matoso, the world’s second-biggest ferro-nickel mine, voted to take strike action amid a dispute over negotiations on a wage agreement. Members of the Sintracerromatoso union approved the move at the operation in northern Colombia, the union’s negotiator Eder Blanco confirmed in a text message. A strike must begin before June 14, and a ...

  ABU DHABI / WAM His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, and President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz of Mauritania, on Sunday discussed fraternal relations as well as regional and international issues of common concern. The talks took place after HH Sheikh Mohamed received the ...