AFP At first glance there’s nothing out of the ordinary about the regional airport in George, a town of just 150,000 residents on South Africa’s south coast. In fact though, the small site is Africa’s first “green” airport to be powered by the sun. The control tower, escalators, check-in desks, baggage carousels, restaurants and ATMs — every service here ...

  Bloomberg Itau Unibanco Holding SA, Latin America’s largest bank by market value, agreed to buy Citigroup Inc.’s retail-banking business in Brazil for 710 million reais ($220 million), taking over operations that the US company has maintained in the country for more than 100 years. The purchase includes Citi’s 71 branches in the South American country as well as its ...

  Bloomberg As the price of oil stays stubbornly low, investors in the Middle East are turning to deals. Mergers and acquisitions activity in the Gulf region is set to accelerate as lower oil prices force governments and corporations to consolidate fragmented industries, according to Bank of America Corp. (BofA) “The drop in oil prices has made people in the ...

  Bloomberg Bank Leumi Le-Israel Ltd. expects to end its five-year dividend drought in early 2017 as it’s “very close” to clearing the main regulatory hurdle standing in its way, Chief Executive Officer Rakefet Russak-Aminoach said. The Bank of Israel requires lenders to meet a Tier 1 capital ratio of 10.25 percent by Jan. 1. The Tier 1 ratio is ...

  Bloomberg Global banking regulators are sticking to their guns on capital standards in the face of intense European pressure to soften planned rule-changes. The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision will wrap up work on the post-crisis capital framework on schedule by the end of the year, William Coen, the regulator’s secretary general, said. Key elements criticized by European Union ...

  ABU DHABI / Emirates Business The current low oil price environment has provided robust opportunities in the Middle Eastern project logistics and breakbulk sector — a critical part of the supply chain supporting the fast-growing regional infrastructure project sector, as discussed at the Breakbulk Middle East launch press conference on Sunday. At the press conference, Breakbulk officially announced that ...

  DUBAI / Emirates Business As Middle East organizations embark on their digital transformation journeys, Kodak Alaris intends to highlight how it can solve their information management challenges through its participation at GITEX 2016. Under the theme ‘Digitize your City’, the company will showcase its latest solutions for reigning in Data Chaos to enable core business functions — from marketing ...

  ABU DHABI / Emirates Business UAE Exchange, the leading global remittance, foreign exchange and payment solutions brand, recently announced its celebration of Customer Service Week throughout its operations in 31 countries across 5 continents. It is being organised from October 9-13 in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC); and from October 10-14 in Africa, America, Asia-Pacific, Europe and other Middle ...

  Dubai / Emirates Business Dulsco, a regional leader in human resource and waste management solutions stated that the focus by GCC Governments on infrastructure and other sustainability projects will drive the next phase of growth in its core business areas. As per reports published during the recently concluded Big 5 show, over AED 190 billion is being directed towards ...

  Bloomberg Egypt has “almost completed” the actions required for the International Monetary Fund’s board to review its $12 billion loan accord, but some measures related to the exchange rate and subsidies are still pending, Managing Director Christine Lagarde said on Saturday. The most populous Arab country is relying on the deal to restore investor confidence and ease a dollar ...