Saturday 4 June 2016

Saudi to retain key decision-making for Aramco after IPO - FT.com

Saudi to retain key decision-making for Aramco after IPO - FT.com:

"Khalid Al Falih, Saudi Arabia’s oil minister and chairman of the country’s state energy giant, said the government will make sovereign decisions on production and capacity even after a public offering of Saudi Aramco.
Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of his first Opec meeting in Vienna, Mr Al Falih said any minority investor would be buying into the relationship between the Saudi government and the world’s largest oil producer."



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Saudi Arabia oil chief breathes life into Opec, for now - FT.com

Saudi Arabia oil chief breathes life into Opec, for now - FT.com:

"When Khalid Al Falih was brought in as the Saudi health minister last year, the technocrat was charged with rejuvenating the kingdom’s inefficient healthcare sector that had gone off course. Now, in his role as the kingdom’s energy minister, Mr Falih is bringing his skills to Opec — a once mighty organisation that has been written off as dead by many industry observers.
At the Vienna meeting of ministers this week, Mr Falih demonstrated why he has the hard won reputation for being a safe pair of hands. Although Opec did not agree on a new output target, he was able to harness the group’s disparate members whose economies have been battered by a two-year slump in oil prices and present a unified front."



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Boutique Firm Verus Hires HSBC Banker to Set Up in Mideast - Bloomberg

Boutique Firm Verus Hires HSBC Banker to Set Up in Mideast - Bloomberg:

"Verus Partners Ltd., the boutique firm that advised Saudi Arabia when it took out $10 billion in loans this year, hired Yusuf Macun from HSBC Holdings Plc to set up its operations in the Middle East.
London-based Verus, founded by former Citigroup Inc. bankers Mark Aplin and Andrew Elliott, appointed Macun as a partner in the United Arab Emirates, the company said in an e-mailed statement late Thursday. Macun was previously head of power and renewables for HSBC in Europe, the Middle East and Africa region. He was also head of commercial and project finance for Abu Dhabi National Energy Co., or TAQA.
Set up in 2011, Verus Partners has helped arrange more than $40 billion in transactions, the company said. In April, it helped the Saudi government secure its first loan in 15 years from banks, according to people with knowledge of the matter. It also advised a unit of Saudi Arabian Mining Co. when it refinanced $3.2 billion of debt in 2014, people said at the time."



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Emirates pushes to get its 142 superjumbos, gives up on A380Neo | GulfNews.com

Emirates pushes to get its 142 superjumbos, gives up on A380Neo | GulfNews.com:

"Emirates, the largest operator of Airbus Group SE’s A380 superjumbo, has all but given up on getting an upgrade of the double-decker with new engines and is instead making a more modest pitch to the plane maker: please don’t drop the programme altogether.

“I can’t force Toulouse (Airbus) to do anything,” Emirates President Tim Clark told reporters on Friday at a briefing in Dublin, referring to Airbus’s home base in southern France.

“My main concern is that they stop producing the plane.”"



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Gulf investors hold back from UK property deals on Brexit fears | Reuters

Gulf investors hold back from UK property deals on Brexit fears | Reuters:

"Gulf Arab investors, some of the biggest buyers of British real estate, are holding back from new deals because they fear a property price slump if Britain leaves the European Union, according to legal and investment sources.

Sovereign and private investors from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates have been prolific buyers of British assets in the past decade, snapping up billions of dollars worth of property, mostly in London.

"Sovereign wealth funds are concerned that Brexit is taking its toll on the property market in London," said a London-based lawyer who works with some of the largest Gulf funds. He declined to be named, citing the confidential nature of his work."



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