Tuesday 9 July 2013

Banking aspirant UAE Exchange to cut promoter stake | Business Standard

"Banking aspirant UAE Exchange & Financial Services Ltd, a non-banking finance company (NBFC), will dilute its promoter holding by bringing in investors to comply with the eligibility rule.

At present, promoter holding is about 63 per cent. The maximum holding allowed under the Reserve Bank of Indias (RBI) norm for a new bank licence is 49 per cent.

A top company official said the plan is to expand the capital base through private placement of equity to prospective investors. There are also rules on foreign holding."

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Gazprom Halts Ukraine Transit Payments | Business | The Moscow Times

"Gazprom's decision to halt prepayment of natural gas transit fees to Ukrainian state-owned Naftogaz until at least 2015 creates the potential for modest supply disruptions in Southeast Europe this winter due to low levels of gas in Ukraine's storage facilities, Fitch Ratings said in a statement Tuesday.

Gazprom's prepayments are critical for Naftogaz, which relies on gas transit revenues and support from the Ukrainian government to offset losses on domestic gas sales.

Gazprom said Naftogaz needed to add a further 12 billion cubic meters of gas to its current 7.5 bcm reserves to ensure that Ukraine had enough for the winter and that it would not need to use gas passing through the pipeline to Europe. At current prices to Ukraine, this would cost about $4.8 billion, which Naftogaz cannot afford on its own."

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Sberbank Brings Forward Troika Deal | Business | The Moscow Times

"Sberbank has agreed with sellers Standard Bank and Troika Dialogue to complete the second stage of their 2011 deal to purchase 100 percent of investment bank Troika Dialogue early, Sberbank said Tuesday in a press release.

The deal's second stage will see Standard Bank and Troika Dialogue receive $400 million. Of this, $350 million will be paid out after the early completion agreement is signed, and the remaining $50 million will be paid upon the successful integration of Troika into Sberbank and the meeting of 2013 net profit targets.

"The creation of Sberbank CIB, "Sberbank Capital Management and Sberbank Private Banking is aimed at providing a full range of services to our clients. First year results demonstrate the effectiveness of this integration strategy, as well as the high rate of returns on invested capital," said Sberbank President German Gref."

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DTEK creates trading company in Switzerland

"Ukraine's largest private energy holding DTEK has created a trading company in Switzerland to provide direct access to the energy markets of Europe, the press service of the company said on Tuesday.

According to the company, DTEK Trading SA registered in Geneva on June 20 will carry out the bulk of trading in electricity and coal on European markets. DTEK Trading LLC will be responsible for produce sales on the Ukrainian market and its exports to the CIS countries.

"The establishment of the Swiss unit is the generally accepted international practice and it will facilitate the implementation of direct transparent sales to end consumers in Europe. This will allow to improve the efficiency of export operations and strengthen the company's position on the European energy market," reads a statement citing DTEK Commercial Director Andriy Favorov."

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Guest post: Croatia’s forex loan hangover | beyondbrics

"A Zagreb court last week ruled that eight banks had mis-sold Swiss franc loans to retail clients. All foreign-owned, the banks make up more than 80 per cent of the Croatian banking industry.

The judgement – which is open to appeal – is fascinating in its many implications, not the least of which is the damages banks may have to pay.

The banks included Croatia’s two largest, Zagrebacka banka (part of the Unicredit group) and Privredna banka Zagreb (part of the Intesa group), as well as Erste, Raiffeisen, Hypo Alpe-Adria Bank, OTP, Splitska banka (part of the Société Générale group) and Sberbank – formerly Volksbank."

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Russia Declassifies Oil Reserves To Lure Investment Eurasia Review

"Russia’s oil reserves are no longer a state secret, according to a resolution signed by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and posted on the government’s legal information website on Tuesday.

Previously, all information about reserves of strategic mineral resources and the volumes of their extraction, production and consumption was classified under Russian law.

The resolution, prepared by the Natural Resources Ministry and signed by the prime minister on Friday, declassifies information about reserves of oil as well as gas dissolved in oil."

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Nakheel Profit Jumps 57% on Dubai Property Market Rebound - Bloomberg

"Nakheel PJSC, the builder of artificial islands off Dubai’s coast, said first-half profit climbed 57 percent as the sheikhdom’s improving real estate market fueled demand for the company’s properties.
Net income rose to 1.2 billion dirhams ($327 million) from 767 million dirhams a year earlier, Nakheel said in a statement today. Revenue gained 36 percent to 4.23 billion dirhams.
The state-run company that was bailed out by Dubai’s government in 2009 said it’s completing more residential and retail projects as the property market recovers from a crash that saw prices fall more than 65 percent. The company will be able to pay or refinance as much as half of its $3 billion of debt coming due in 2016 as it generates at least $1 billion from new projects and land sales, JPMorgan Chase & Co. said in a July 4 research note."

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MIDEAST STOCKS-Egypt rises on elections timeframe, Gulf aid | Reuters

"Egyptian stocks rose sharply on Tuesday on signs that the country was moving ahead with a transition to civil government after the military ousted president Mohamed Mursi, and on expectations for major financial aid from the Gulf.

Egyptian Exchange data showed foreign investors remained net sellers of stocks, and there was tremendous uncertainty over whether the country could form a coherent government capable of addressing economic problems.

But late on Monday, a decree issued by interim head of state Adli Mansour revealed plans for parliamentary elections within about six months, with a presidential vote to follow; the parliamentary polls would be held once amendments to Egypt's suspended constitution were approved in a referendum."

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RWE Sees End of Europe’s 40-Year-Old Gas Pricing for Gazprom - Bloomberg

"RWE AG (RWE) expects a 40-year-old system for setting European gas prices that has cost Germany’s second-largest utility hundreds of millions of euros to be cast aside after an arbitration ruling against Russia’s OAO Gazprom. (GAZP)
A Vienna tribunal decided RWE paid Gazprom too much from May 2010 and the Moscow-based gas-export monopoly needed to introduce market rates for the fuel, according to the German power producer. In reaction, Russian President Vladimir Putin defended the decades-old regime of linking rates to oil indexes.
“We have a solution which partly replaces oil indexation by gas indexation,” said RWE Chief Financial Officer Bernhard Guenther in an interview at its head office in Essen. “Going forward we will claw the small money back which we might now still lose on the remaining oil-indexed part.”"

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MTS Bolsters Windows Smartphones as IPhone Ebbs in Russia - Bloomberg

"OAO Mobile TeleSystems (MTSS)’s chief said Russia’s largest mobile-phone operator would need better terms to back Apple Inc. (AAPL) handsets again after Windows smartphones advanced to almost match iPhones in market share.
“Apple wants operators to pay them huge money, subsidizing iPhones and their promotion in Russia,” Chief Executive Officer Andrei Dubovskov said in an interview in St. Petersburg. “Now it’s not beneficial for us. It’s good we stopped selling the iPhone as these sales would’ve brought us a negative margin.”
MTS stopped selling Apple’s latest iPhones in its shops at the end of 2012 and has strengthened its relationship with other device makers. It hosted Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) CEO Steve Ballmer and Nokia Oyj (NOK1V) CEO Stephen Elop in Moscow in November. MTS, controlled by billionaire Vladimir Evtushenkov’s AFK Sistema, agreed to promote Microsoft Windows handsets including Nokia Lumias and opened Windows Phone zones in its flagship stores."

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High oil prices look like a black swan for financial markets « ArabianMoney

"When oil prices surged to $147 in this month five years ago that was the starting signal for the global financial crisis. Oil was $33 by December, plunging the Middle East into a deep recession. Could it be the same story this year?

On yesterday’s ‘Chart Attack,’ Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s CIO Mary Ann Bartels and Bloomberg’s Adam Johnson look at the price of oil on Bloomberg Television’s ‘Street Smart’…
VIDEO
"

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Egypt Shares Gain on Election Timeline; Bonds Drop Amid Violence - Bloomberg

"Egypt’s stocks rose, rebounding from the biggest drop in almost a month, as the interim president set a timeline for new elections. Benchmark bonds slumped for a second day.
The benchmark EGX 30 Index climbed 3.2 percent to 5,288.06 at 11:47 a.m. in Cairo, set for the biggest increase since July 4, as all but one stock advanced. Commercial International Bank Egypt SAE, the nation’s biggest publicly traded lender, led the gains, jumping 4.6 percent on volume of 37 percent of the three-month daily average. The yield on the government’s 5.75 percent bonds due in April 2020 surged 39 basis points to 9.71 percent.
Adly Mansour, who was appointed by the army as interim president after President Mohamed Mursi was ousted last week, said in a document yesterday that Egypt would amend the constitution and hold parliamentary elections in seven months. The EGX dropped 3.6 percent yesterday and bonds declined as a shooting of Islamists by the army outside a Republican Guard building left more than 50 dead."

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Libya Oil Output Slides as Power Cuts Mix With Protests - Bloomberg

"Since the overthrow of Muammar Qaddafi in 2011, Libya’s oil industry has become the target of violent attacks and civil protests. The latest challenge is a lack of electricity.
Production dropped 16 percent to 1.13 million barrels a day last month, the lowest since January, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The decline is partly because power shortages are disrupting the pumps that lift oil from beneath the ground, said Abdel Jalil Mayuf, a spokesman for state-run Arabian Gulf Oil Co., which pumps crude in eastern Libya."

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India tourism: the rupee effect | beyondbrics

"
The sharply depreciating rupee of recent weeks has caused trouble for India in areas such as the current account deficit and inflation.

But there is one industry that should benefit from the currency’s weaker status: tourism. Shouldn’t it? Perhaps, but not in the way you might expect.

India, like many other countries with an exceptional cultural heritage, wants more tourists. K Chiranjeevi, the tourism minister, is looking to ramp up visitor numbers over the next few years, aiming to up India’s share of international tourist arrivals to 1 per cent by 2016, from around 0.64 per cent in 2012, creating around 25m jobs across the country."

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Ex-Shell executive named CEO at UAE's Dana Gas | Fox Business

"Dana Gas Co , the UAE energy firm that restructured a $920 million Islamic bond in April, named Patrick Allman-Ward, the general manager of its Egyptian operations, as its new group chief executive, Dana said in a statement on Tuesday.

Allman-Ward, who joined Dana in 2012 from Royal Dutch Shell , has played a key role in developing the firm's Egyptian operations, including increasing production and developing new business opportunities, Dana said.

His appointment is effective Septemeber 1, 2013."

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London Court Says Turkish Group Must Pay Altimo $1.6Bln | Business | The Moscow Times

"A British court ruled that Turkey's Cukurova Group must pay $1.57 billion to Russian telecom firm Altimo to recover Turkcell shares appropriated for a defaulted loan, opening the way to end an eight-year dispute between major shareholders.

Shares in Turkcell, Turkey's biggest mobile phone operator, rose 3 percent Tuesday after the announcement of the figure, which includes the interest accrued over the years the dispute has been running.

The announcement follows a British Privy Council ruling in January that Altimo had been entitled to appropriate the shares but that Cukurova should have an opportunity to recover them "on appropriate conditions.""

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Metro Group finalizes deal on sale of Real hypermarkets to France's Groupe Auchan

"Germany's Metro Group has finalized a deal on the sale of the real,- hypermarket chain to France's Groupe Auchan for EUR 1.1 billion, the Kyiv office of Schoenherr law firm, which acted as an advisor of Germany's Hengeler Mueller, an independent law advisor of Metro Group.

Metro will transfer 91 real,- hypermarkets in Poland, Russia and Ukraine and 13 retail galleries in Russia and Romania to the French group.

As reported, the deal was inked on November 30, 2012. It is considered one of the largest deals on the M&A market in 2012."

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#UAE agrees to give #Egypt $3 billion in loans and grant: source | News , Middle East | THE DAILY STAR

"The United Arab Emirates has agreed to grant Egypt $1 billion and lend it another $2 billion, an Egyptian source close to the talks said on Tuesday.

The source said the amount was expected to be part of a larger financial package from the UAE. The loan would be in the form of a deposit at Egypt's central bank, although the interest rate and maturity had yet to be finalised.

He also said that Saudi Arabia was expected to lend Egypt $2 billion, which he expected to be confirmed within two days."

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Azarov set to attract powerful financial resource to economy by year-end - ForUm

"The implementation of the State program of economy revitalization in 2013-2014 will let attract additional financial resources by the end of the year, Prime Minister of Ukraine Mykola Azarov said during a meeting to review the regional aspects of the State program of the economy revitalization in 2013-2014 in Livadia (Yalta, Autonomous Republic of Crimea), the Cabinet’s press office reports.

"I am deeply convinced that the program will revive the economy and let get additional powerful financial resource by the end of the year. There is no doubt in that," PM said.

He urged the leaders of the regions to actively work on the development and implementation of major investment projects, implementation of which will contribute to boosting the economies of the regions and the country as a whole.

"We’ll fail to implement this program without teamwork, involving the heads of regional state administrations, the Secretariat of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, the Finance Ministry, the Economy Ministry, the National Bank of Ukraine, the main leadership of state banks," the Prime Minister noted."

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#Ukraine: edging closer to balance of payments crisis | beyondbrics

"With its economy crawling out of recession, Ukraine’s budget revenues and central bank reserves are sliding as talks with the International Monetary Fund on a multi-billion-dollar bailout drag on. It’s a bubbling volatile mix which could boil over, plunging the country into a full-blown balance of payment crisis.

As London-based Capital Economics pointed out in a note:

The slump in Ukrainian FX reserves to a six-year low serves as a reminder that Ukraine’s fragile external position continues to keep it one step away from a full-blown balance of payments crisis."

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Egypt bond continues Qatar deposit switch - IFR | Reuters

"Egypt continues to convert deposits received from Qatar into fixed-term notes, after the sovereign privately placed a $1 billion bond in early July, its second such deal in just over a month.

The new $1 billion three-year bond was issued on July 1 at par to yield 3.5 percent via HSBC and QNB Capital. It follows a $2.7 billion, 18-month senior unsecured deal which priced at a yield of 4.25 percent in late May, part of a $5.5 billion lifeline from Qatar that is expected to be converted into securities.

Both were issued from a $12 billion EMTN programme set up earlier this year."

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Corruption worsened in Arab countries since uprisings: poll | News , Middle East | THE DAILY STAR

"Corruption has worsened in most Arab countries since their 2011 revolutions, even though anger with corrupt officials was a major reason for the uprisings, according to a public opinion poll released on Tuesday.

The survey by Transparency International, a global non-governmental body which studies bribery around the world, appears to dash hopes that the Arab Spring would produce cleaner government and business in the region.

The Arab public's continued frustration with corruption may undermine governments' efforts to restore political stability, while hindering economic growth and foreign investment."

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GCC IPO activity fell in second quarter with a 94% drop in average offering value - bi-me.com

"Depressed Initial Public Offering (IPO) activity in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) continued into the second quarter of 2013 with three new listings raising a total of only USD 48 million.

This compared to two IPOs in Q1 2013 raising an aggregate of USD 337 million, representing an 86% decrease in total value raised.

The average offering value dropped 94% this quarter compared to the same quarter last year where we witnessed four IPOs raising a total of USD 1.1 billion."

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Virgin Mobile consortium to list shares in Oman after license win - Alarabiya.net English | Front Page

"A consortium that includes Virgin Mobile Middle East & Africa (VMMEA) will list its shares on the Oman bourse within five years as a condition of winning a license to provide telecom services in the Gulf Arab state.
Connect Arabia International (CAI) was awarded a 15-year licence that will require the company to sell 40 percent of its shares through an initial public offering on Muscat’s bourse, the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority said in an email.
The license will cost 20,000 rials ($51,900), the regulator added."

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TABLE-Kuwait Q2 earnings estimates | Reuters (Click thru)

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The foreign-law distinction, #Egypt and the emirate edition | FT Alphaville #Qatar

"There’s one thing about how the Qataris have gone about protecting their $5.5bn or so lending in Egypt — and it’s a small thing, next to a coup d’etat, the swift exit of the chap they’d bet on, and a looming balance of payments crisis…

But it’s a familiar thing:


Whether by accident or design, this might be a Qatari datapoint for the foreign-law distinction."

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#UAE delegation to arrive in #Egypt soon: source | THE DAILY STAR

"A ministerial delegation from the United Arab Emirates is due to arrive in Egypt early this week, a source close to the UAE government said on Tuesday.

The source, who declined to be named, did not give any details or discuss the purpose of the visit.

The UAE was among the first Gulf countries to congratulate Egypt in the wake of last week's ouster of Islamist president Mohammad Mursi; it has long distrusted Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood.

Many analysts and investors expect the UAE to extend financial aid to the post-Mursi government in an effort to stabilise Egypt's troubled economy. In 2011 the UAE pledged $3 billion in aid to Egypt, but the money was never delivered."

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Dubai Holding 'dissolves' Tiger Woods partnership - Banking & Finance - ArabianBusiness.com

"
Dubai Holding has confirmed it has “dissolved” its partnership with Tiger Woods. The branded golf resort, for which the World No.1 golfer was paid $55.4m to design and promote, has been permanently scrapped.
Dubai Properties Group, a unit of Dubai Holding, announced in January 2010 it had suspended work on the luxury Tiger Woods Dubai golf course and residential units but said it would “continue to be monitored and a decision will be made in the future when to restart the project.”
As some initial work had begun on the site before it was suspended in 2010, the developer said it is currently reviewing its options on how best to develop the site and a new project, which will have no association with Tiger Woods, will be announced in due course."

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[video] Investing in post-Morsi Egypt | beyondbrics

"Markets have been volatile after the removal of President Mohamed Morsi. Tarek Shahin, Africa investment specialist with Investec Asset Management, explains to the FT’s Ellen Kelleher why he’s still hopeful on Egypt and the significance of an IMF loan for investors.
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Egypt sells $1bn bonds to Qatar as reserves decline

"Egypt, which is witnessing violent clashes between supporters of deposed President Mohamed Mursi and the military, raised $1bn from a bond sale to Qatar, according to Exotix Holdings.
The Arab country, whose president was ousted by the army on July 3, a year into his term, sold the three-year notes on July 1 at a coupon of 3.5%, according to a term sheet received by Bloomberg late on Sunday.
Egypt’s former Finance Minister Fayad Abdel Moneim said by phone on June 4 the nation planned to issue $3bn of bonds to Qatar. The bonds will be issued in July, with a maturity of as many as three years and pay a 3.5% coupon, Al Mal newspaper reported that day, citing the Egyptian government. The country’s foreign exchange reserves fell by $1.1bn to $14.9bn in June, according to central bank data."

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TABLE- Bahrain Q2 earnings estimates | Reuters (Click thru)



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Dubai Big Brother Abu Dhabi Drives Spending on Museums Not Malls - Bloomberg

"Less than 100 miles (160 kilometers) of the Persian Gulf coastline separates Dubai from Abu Dhabi, yet economically the cities are growing further apart.
As Dubai recovers from its slump caused by the global financial meltdown, Abu Dhabi is expanding faster, according to figures from their governments published last month. The difference now is that it’s not just because of petrodollars. Building projects and tourism mean the non-oil economy has overtaken Dubai’s entire output, the data showed.
“The recovery in Dubai grabs a lot more headlines, given how hard it was hit,” said Raza Agha, chief Middle East and Africa economist at VTB Capital in London. “The fact of the matter is that for the United Arab Emirates’s non-oil economy, Abu Dhabi’s non-oil sector is equally important.”"

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