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US financial advisory Lazard is working with Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund on Masar, a $27 billion mega-project in the holy city of Mecca

Saudi Arabia works with Lazard on funding Mecca mega-project

Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) is working with Lazard on funding options and a potential initial public offering (IPO) of Masar, a $27 billion mega-project in the holy city of Mecca. The kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund, which has over $600 billion in assets, is working with the US financial advisory on Masar, and several […]

Meta cuts 11,000 jobs as it sinks more money into the metaverse

Meta Platforms Inc said on Wednesday it would cut more than 11,000 jobs, or 13 percent of its workforce, as the Facebook parent doubled down on its risky metaverse bet amid a crumbling advertising market and decades-high inflation. The mass layoffs, among the biggest this year and the first in Meta’s 18-year history, follow thousands […]

Crypto’s FTX CEO looking at all options as Binance deal collapses

FTX chief executive officer Sam Bankman-Fried told employees he was exploring all options for his firm after a deal with cryptocurrency exchange Binance collapsed on Wednesday. The proposed deal between Bankman-Fried and rival Binance chief executive officer Changpeng Zhao of Binance had been the latest emergency rescue in the world of cryptocurrencies this year, as […]

Elon Musk's plans for Twitter include overhauling the blue verification system, leaving Dubai influencers planning their response

Dubai’s influencers will weather the blue tick Twitter storm

Twitter is going through an historic overhaul: thousands of staff members fired, a new senior leadership team in place, and a new CEO at the helm – Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk. Among Musk’s flagship plans for the platform, perhaps the most eye-catching is an overhaul of the verification system — Twitter’s blue ticks. […]

Black Panther stars say film changed perceptions of Africa

Cameras flashed as stars of the highly-anticipated sequel to Marvel’s ‘Black Panther’ walked the red carpet at the ‘Wakanda Forever’ premiere in London. Set in the fictional African land of Wakanda, ‘Black Panther’ became a global hit and was hailed as a milestone for racial diversity in Hollywood when it came out in 2018. Released […]

Sunglasses, Accessories, Accessory

Twitter updates app to start charging $8 for blue checkmark

Twitter on Saturday updated its app in Apple’s app store to begin charging $8 for sought-after blue check verification marks, in Elon Musk’s first major revision of the social media platform. The change comes a week after Musk took over the social media company in a $44 billion deal. The billionaire entrepreneur and CEO of […]

Jobs at risk as private equity slows hiring in the Gulf

The looming global recession is pushing private equity firms to freeze hiring in the Gulf, with layoffs likely to be on the way, an executive at a UAE-based global investment company has said.  Major Wall Street firms are already beginning to rein in expenses amid a slump in deals volume on the back of repeated […]

Federal Reserve board chairman Jerome Powell announces the latest rise in interest rates

Gulf rate hike: Good for gold and bonds, bad for credit

Gulf companies have been able to absorb rising interest rates but as regional central banks follow the US Federal Reserve’s latest hike, borrowing appetite is likely to be subdued. It may, however, be good for gold, bank deposits and fixed income. Four of the Gulf states announced on Wednesday that they would increase their key […]

Window, Silhouette, Architecture

More Twitter officials leave after Elon Musk’s $44bn takeover

In an expanding exodus of Twitter’s top management, officials including its advertising and marketing chiefs left the company in the past few days, according to statements and a person with direct knowledge of the matter. The departures come after billionaire Elon Musk’s $44 billion takeover of the company last week, followed by his firing of […]

Advertisement, Billboard, Bird

Elon Musk says Twitter will revise how it verifies users

Twitter will revise its user verification process, Elon Musk said in a tweet on Sunday, just days after he took over one of the world’s most influential social media platforms. “Whole verification process is being revamped right now”, Musk said in his tweet without giving more details. Twitter is considering charging for the coveted blue […]

Jared Kushner’s firm leads $200m funding for Dubizzle’s owner

UAE-based unicorn Emerging Markets Property Group (EMPG) has completed a $200 million investment led by Affinity Partners, a global firm launched in 2021 by former US president Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. EMPG owns leading UAE classifieds platforms Bayut and Dubizzle, along with several platforms across emerging markets focused on Mena, South and Southeast Asia. The investment round […]

Musk’s Twitter ownership starts with firing of top executives

Elon Musk became Twitter Inc’s owner on Thursday, firing top executives and providing little clarity over how he will achieve the lofty ambitions he has outlined for the influential social media platform. “The bird is freed,” he tweeted, referencing Twitter’s bird logo in an apparent nod to his desire to see the company have fewer […]

Energy crisis inflates Gulf demand and strains Europe

The Opec+ oil production cuts announced in early October look set to ensure high energy prices continue for some time – a boon for Gulf producers but a headache for energy importers elsewhere. The situation is particularly acute in Europe, where countries have been scrambling to find alternatives to Russian gas.  The first instinct of […]

Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman speaks at the Future Investment Initiative conference in Riyadh on October 25

Riyadh was more ‘mature’ in spat with Washington, minister tells FII

Saudi Arabia decided to be the “maturer guys” in a spat with the United States over oil supplies, the kingdom’s energy minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said on Tuesday. Prince Abdulaziz made the comment during his speech to the kingdom’s Future Investment Initiative (FII) event, which has drawn top executives from the US and elsewhere. […]

COP27

Egypt’s Cop27 will see developing nations call for ‘climate justice’

Drought and famine haunt the Middle East. The Dead Sea has fallen to its lowest level in centuries. Starved of food and fresh water, desperate migrants criss-cross the Mediterranean, fomenting social unrest and violence. Within a few decades, a healthy global trade network has collapsed. Every major settlement has been abandoned or razed to the […]

Carmakers to double spending on EVs, batteries to $1.2trn by 2030

The world’s top automakers are planning to spend nearly $1.2 trillion through 2030 to develop and produce millions of electric vehicles, along with the batteries and raw materials to support that production, according to a Reuters analysis of public data and projections released by those companies. The EV investment figure, which has not previously been […]

MyUS will be integrated into Aramex’s business, operating within the company’s courier segment

Aramex makes largest ever acquisition in $265m US deal

Aramex has completed the acquisition of Access USA Shipping, a platform that enables cross-border e-commerce, for $265 million.  The transaction marks the logistics company’s largest acquisition to date, it said in a filing on Dubai Financial Market. Aramex said Access USA Shipping, which is better known as MyUS, will be integrated into their business, operating […]

Flurry of funds bet on bruised bitcoin and ether allure

A growing number of funds are betting on the long-term appeal of bitcoin and ether, a gritty gambit in the depths of a crypto winter. Unfazed by a collapse in prices over the past 11 months, investment firms have unleashed a flurry of exchange-traded funds, anticipating that elite cryptocurrencies and their underlying technology will eventually […]

Turkey's central bank

Turkish central bank takes more steps to boost lira deposits

Turkey’s central bank took fresh steps to boost lira deposits on Tuesday, raising the ratio of bonds that banks must hold for foreign exchange deposits and requiring those with less than 50 percent lira deposits to hold even more bonds from next year. The central bank raised the securities maintenance ratio required for forex deposits […]

  • Analysis

MENA startup valuations take a hit as funding tightens

Funding for startups in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) has continued to decline this year, in line with global trends, but industry experts remain optimistic that the end of the year will see a resurgence. The tightening of cash has also meant investors are looking for increasingly bigger stakes, resulting in startup valuations […]