April, 2018

• 10 April

  Standard Bank eyes West Africa growth post Ivory Coast entry

  Bloomberg Standard Bank Group Ltd. is seeking a banking license in Senegal after opening in Ivory Coast as the lender expands in West Africa’s French-speaking countries. Africa’s largest lender, which opened in the world’s biggest cocoa producer, will focus on corporate and investment-banking clients after obtaining the license in 2016, Sola David-Borha, the Johannesburg-based company’s chief executive officer for Africa, ...

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• 10 April

  Bank of England mustn’t dally over next interest rate hike

  

  LONDON / Reuters The Bank of England should not delay raising interest rates again, one of its top policymakers said, pointing to the possibility of faster pay rises and the recent strong pick-up in the world economy. Ian McCafferty told Reuters that after lagging behind inflation for much of the past decade, wage growth might prove stronger than most of ...

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• 10 April

  Norwegian Air postpones Canada services amid 737 delivery delays

  

  Bloomberg Norwegian Air Shuttle ASA has shelved flights between Europe and Canada until next year after delivery delays afflicting Boeing Co. 737 Max narrow-body jets left too little time to market the planned routes. Services won’t now begin until spring 2019 following a slippage of about four weeks in the handover of two 737s, Norwegian Air Chief Executive Officer Bjorn ...

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• 10 April

  Training jetmaker AviChina soars 40%

  

  Bloomberg China’s push to bolster its military firepower has turned a state-run aviation stock into one of Asia’s best performers this year. AviChina Industry & Technology Co., a maker of training jets, transport helicopters and airplane electronics systems, jumped 40 percent in Hong Kong since the start of February through April 9 as Beijing pledged to boost defense spending. That ...

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• 10 April

  Walmart gets selective with web sellers

  

  Bloomberg Walmart Inc.’s online marketplace is getting more choosy. The retailer’s website — where third-party vendors sell their own wares — is adding far fewer sellers a month compared with a year ago, according to data tracker Marketplace Pulse. The site, which Walmart created in 2009 to compete with a similar offering from Amazon.com Inc., now includes about 18,000 sellers. ...

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• 10 April

  LVMH to maintain China-driven demand with e-comm

  

  Bloomberg After demand from China drove another quarter of rapid growth for LVMH, Chief Executive Officer Bernard Arnault is counting on e-commerce to help keep his luxury empire ahead of the pack. First-quarter sales rose 13 percent on an organic basis, the Paris-based owner of Sephora and Christian Dior said. That beat analysts’ average estimate of 8.5 percent and spurred ...

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• 10 April

  Steinhoff: Payments to ex-chairman Christo Wiese broke company rules

  Bloomberg Steinhoff International Holdings NV said two deals with entities related to its former chairman and biggest shareholder Christo Wiese didn’t follow proper disclosure processes, dragging the South African billionaire deeper into an accounting crisis. The agreements were made in the two months leading up to the emergence of financial irregularities that have wiped more than 90 percent off the ...

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• 9 April

  Mena fintech sector to attract AED9.2bn in deals by 2022

  

  Abu Dhabi / Emirates Business The current MENA fintech market is estimated at $2 billion (AED7.35 billion) and expected to witness an annual growth of $125 million (AED459 million) until 2022, according to Mena Research Partners (MRP), a leading research company in the region. Increasingly compelling business models of fintech are expected to drive the market growth further. Going forward, ...

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• 9 April

  UAE ranked world’s largest aid donor for fifth straight year

  ABU DHABI / WAM The UAE has been named the world’s largest donor of development assistance in proportion to its gross national income for the fifth year running, according to the Development Assistance Committee of the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development. The UAE exceeded the United Nations’ target of 0.7 percent official development assistance in proportion to its GNI ...

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• 9 April

  Mubadala Petroleum inks gas contracts with Indonesia

  ABU DHABI / WAM Mubadala Petroleum on Monday announced that it has signed the Production Sharing Contract (PSC) for Andaman I, as awarded by the Government of Indonesia in the 2017 Indonesian Licence Round. Mubadala Petroleum is the operator of the Andaman I PSC and a partner in the Andaman II PSC, operated by Premier Oil, which was also signed ...

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