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Bloomberg Pandora A/S has spent 2018 purging its upper ranks, including getting rid of its chief executive and its chief financial officer. The question now is what’s in store for its board, which oversaw an abysmal year in 2018 as shareholders in the Danish jewellery maker suffered a 61 percent slump in value, the worst in seven years. The company’s ...

Bloomberg Unilever is acquiring The Vegetarian Butcher, a Dutch maker of plant-based meat substitutes, as part of an ambition to expand its foothold in foods that are healthier and have a lower environmental impact. In taking over the business, the maker of Dove soap and Ben & Jerry’s ice cream is “responding to the growing trend among consumers to increasingly ...

Bloomberg US airports may be just as vulnerable as London’s Gatwick airport to the kind of illegal drone incursions that shut down the UK’s second-busiest hub last week. Counter-drone technology performed so poorly in US government tests in recent years that the systems couldn’t reliably identify rogue unmanned aircraft, casting doubts on whether there’s a viable short-term solution to the ...

ABU DHABI / WAM The assets of UAE conventional banks (CB) amounted to around AED2.275 trillion, accounting for 79.7 percent of total banking assets by the end of November 2018, with Sharia-compliant banks accounting for 20.3 percent of total banking assets, according to statistics released on Monday by the Central Bank of UAE. The total assets of CB increased by ...

CAIRO / WAM The United Arab Emirates is participating in the 32nd meeting of the Unified Arab Customs Law Committee, which began at the Arab League headquarters, under the chairmanship of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The UAE delegation was headed by Ali Rashid Al-Dhanhani, Director of the Legal Affairs Department of the Federal Customs Authority, and included Ibrahim Al ...

Bloomberg National Commercial Bank (NCB), Saudi Arabia’s biggest lender, started initial talks with Riyad Bank for a merger — a deal that would create the Gulf’s third-biggest lender with $182 billion in assets. Talks may not result in a transaction, National Commercial Bank said in a statement. The lender said it has coordinated the move with the central bank and ...

Bloomberg China announced another round of tariff cuts, lowering import taxes on more than 700 goods from January 1 as part of its efforts to open up the economy and lower costs for domestic consumers. There will also be cuts to some export tariffs, and temporary import tariff rates will be as low as zero for some goods, the Ministry ...

SHARJAH / WAM Sharjah airport has received the inaugural flight of Pegasus Airline, arriving from Sabiha Airport in Istanbul. Pegasus Airline introduced its new daily service on Sharjah-Istanbul route in response to the increasing demand for travel to and from Sharjah due to the regional and global importance of Sharjah Airport as a passenger hub. The route will provide passengers ...

Dubai / Emirates Business Enhancing bilateral trade and investment opportunities between the UAE and Azerbaijan was the topic under discussion at the Annual Networking Reception hosted at Dubai Chamber’s representative office in Baku. More than 200 representatives from the UAE and Azerbaijan public and private sectors attended the event, which was held in Baku. The annual gathering marks a significant ...

RED SEA COAST / WAM The United Arab Emirates, represented by the Emirates Red Crescent (ERC), has provided new jobs for 3,200 Yemeni citizens in 23 contracting companies, which are implementing hundreds of service and development projects along the villages and cities of the Red Sea Coast. The move is part of the ERC’s framework to provide job opportunities for ...