The Gulf Time Newspaper One of the finest business newspapers in the UAE brought to you by our professional writers and editors.

Bloomberg The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has made a 2.51 percent equity investment in Lebanon’s Bank Audi, the EBRD’s first investment in Lebanon, Audi said. The EBRD, a multilateral development bank, said the investment in Lebanon’s largest bank aims to support Lebanese financial markets, influence the broader economy and strengthen the financial sector. Lebanon has one of the …

Bloomberg Deutsche Bank AG is predicting volatile markets are here to stay, helping the lender arrest two years of declines at its debt-trading business. Its forecast that full-year trading revenue will rise is bolder than that of its peers. While other US And European trading behemoths are also predicting a boost to trading, they’ve restricted themselves to the shorter term. …

Bloomberg Nordea Bank AB won enough support from its shareholders for its proposed move to Helsinki from Stockholm, paving the way for the Nordic region’s largest bank to join Europe’s banking union. More than 95% of the shareholders present or represented at the bank’s annual general meeting in Stockholm voted in support of the proposed relocation, surpassing the two thirds …

Bloomberg The UK’s largest lenders face tougher capital demands in this year’s stress test, as the Bank of England steps up efforts to avert a repeat of the financial crisis. Banks will be held to a single capital standard that includes their minimum capital requirements as well as any buffers they must have to account for their importance to the …

Bloomberg Stephen Hawking, the British physicist and black-hole theorist who brought science to a mass audience with the best-selling book ‘A Brief History of Time,’ has died. He was 76. Hawking died peacefully at his home in Cambridge in England in the early hours of Wednesday morning, a spokesman for his family said in an emailed statement. “We are deeply …

Bloomberg US stocks sank as weak retail sales fanned concern that consumer spending is cooling, while the dollar held steady on bets the Federal Reserve won’t be forced to quicken the pace of rate hikes. Ten-year Treasury yields tightened. The drop in retail spending provided a second data point, after Tuesday’s tepid inflation figures, to suggest unsteady growth in the …

Reuters Most Middle Eastern stock markets were soft on Wednesday with Qatar pulling back after two days of strong gains, but a few individual stocks in Saudi Arabia rose sharply in response to positive news. Islamic insurer Al Khaleej Takaful tumbled 9.1 percent after saying on Tuesday that it would distribute no dividend for 2017, after the central bank asked …

Bloomberg The biggest Indonesian platform to buy and sell digital currency may soon have more members than the nation’s century-old stock exchange. Indonesia Digital Asset Exchange, formerly known as Bitcoin.co.id, will have 1.5 million members buying and selling digital currencies such as bitcoin, ethereum and ripple by the end of the year, according to Chief Executive Officer Oscar Darmawan. The …

Seoul / Reuters South Korea’s move to shut coal-fired generators to control air pollution at the same time as nuclear reactors are going into scheduled maintenance is resulting in surging fuel oil imports, as utilities burn the dirty feedstock to meet power demand. South Korea’s trade ministry said in February it would suspend five coal-fired power plants, with a combined …

Bloomberg After a decade planning the world’s largest floating gas export plant, Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s supplies could get tapped by a competitor first. Shell and Japan’s Inpex Corp. are both targeting gas from a connected reservoir in Australia’s remote Browse Basin, about 200 kilometers (125 miles) off its northwest coast, according to consultant Wood Mackenzie Ltd. Meeting its planned …