The assets of the United Arab Emirates’ banking sector have surged to more than $900bn from $75bn since 2000, the head of a major Emirati banking association said, forecasting further massive revenue growth in the sector. The total revenues of the UAE’s banks are likely to swell by 50 per cent by 2030, reaching more… Continue Reading
Prop trader The Trading Pit raises 10m euros in funding round
By Andrei Skvarsky. The Trading Pit (TTP), a Liechtenstein-based proprietary trading fintech startup, has raised 10m euros ($10.4m) in its latest round of growth funding. TTP now has the goal of achieving global access to all key asset classes, including foreign exchange, stocks, futures and cryptocurrencies, within the next six months, the firm said in… Continue Reading
Emirates NBD opens two more branches in India
By Andrei Skvarsky. Dubai’s Emirates NBD, one of the largest banks in the Middle East, has opened two full-service branches in India in addition to a five-year-old branch in Mumbai in fostering what it calls strategic ties with the homeland of the United Arab Emirates’ largest expatriate community. One of the new branches is located… Continue Reading
EVENT UPDATE: Connected Banking West Africa, Accra, Nov 15-16, 2022
(Conference to be a purely in-person event – no online streaming) This is to remind you of Connected Banking West Africa, an in-person conference in Accra, Ghana, on November 15-16 on digitalisation in banking. The conference will be a purely in-person event with none of the sessions being streamed online. More than 250 companies are… Continue Reading
EVENTS: marcusevans’s Private Equity Investors Summit, Venture Capital Investors Summit, Dec 7-9, 2022
On December 7-9 2022, Palm Beach, Florida, is again going to host the annual Private Equity Investors Summit and Venture Capital Investors Summit, invitation-only conferences organised by business intelligence and event company marcusevans. The two forums are mainly going to be attended by chief investment officers, fund managers and consultants. Entities the attendees will represent… Continue Reading
EVENTS: Connected Banking West Africa, hybrid forum, Accra, Nov 15-16, 2022
Bankers, investors, asset managers, insurers and other financial sector professionals are going to meet in Accra, Ghana, on November 15 and 16 for Connected Banking West Africa, a hybrid in-person/virtual conference on digitalisation in banking. The event is the sixth in the Connected Banking series of conferences that was formerly called Africa Digital Banking Summit… Continue Reading
M4Markets brokerage gets go-ahead to Europe trade from Cyprus regulator
By Andrei Skvarsky. Seychelles-headquartered foreign exchange and contract for differences (CFD) broker M4Markets has obtained a licence from the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) authorising it to cater to European traders. The authorisation came via the acquisition by The Oryx Group, the Belgian-based company behind M4Markets, of CySEC-licensed investment firm ICC Intercertus Capital, which… Continue Reading
The Top 8 Mistakes Made When Measuring Operational Metrics
Operational metrics help you observe the day-to-day functionality of your business and determine whether you’re on the right path to achieve your long-term goals. However, it’s easy to make mistakes when measuring and reporting on operational metrics. The Basics of Operational Metrics Before diving deeper into the topic of operational metrics, consider reading an introductory… Continue Reading
Corporate uni of Russia’s Sberbank to teach Islamic finance
By Andrei Skvarsky. The corporate university of Sberbank, Russia’s biggest lender, plans to launch a course on Islamic finance in a few months’ time, one of the bank’s top managers has announced. Oleg Ganeyev, senior vice-president of Sberbank, made the announcement at a Russian annual Islamic economic forum in Kaspiysk, a city in Russia’s predominantly… Continue Reading
Aussie investment firm Laguna Bay outsources fund admin to Bermuda-based Apex
By Andrei Skvarsky. Australian investment firm Laguna Bay has hired Apex Group, a Bermuda-headquartered financial services provider, to manage a fund for investing in food and agricultural projects in Australia and New Zealand. Laguna Bay Fund 2, the vehicle Apex will manage, is planned to raise and invest up to 1bn Australian dollars (US$672m), according… Continue Reading
Deal enables Apex to use Inveniam blockchain for asset valuation
By Andrei Skvarsky. U.S. fintech company Inveniam has clinched a deal with UK-based financial services firm Apex Group to enable the latter to use blockchain technology patented by the American company and its data operating system for asset valuation. “Using data that is verified on blockchain, through our innovative partnership with Inveniam, will … deliver… Continue Reading
Ampersand, private investor buy out Australian biopharma firm
By Andrei Skvarsky. Global health care private equity firm Ampersand Capital Partners and private investor Glenn Haifer have bought out Australian biopharmaceutical company Luina Bio, rebranding it as AcuraBio, according to a joint statement from Ampersand and AcuraBio. Haifer is board chairman of AcuraBio. He is an Australian medical practitioner and entrepreneur. The statement did… Continue Reading
Abu Dhabi Investment Authority hires Michael Steliaros from Goldman Sachs for senior equity portfolio job
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), the emirate’s sovereign investment fund, has hired Michael Steliaros from Goldman Sachs as global head of equity portfolio engineering and trading in its Core Portfolio Department. At Goldman Sachs, Steliaros was global head of quantitative execution services, which is a research and development division. Previously, he held senior London-… Continue Reading
Permira, Ampersand, Abu Dhabi govt co-acquire, merge two biopharma firms
By Andrei Skvarsky. Private equity investment firms Permira and Ampersand, based in London and Boston respectively, and the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) have jointly acquired and merged two global pharmaceutical companies making remedies from human blood plasma. The merger of Kedrion Biophama, which is headquartered in Tuscany, Italy, and Bio Products Laboratory (BPL), which… Continue Reading
EVENTS: Legal Leaders Europe, forum of company lawyers
Legal Leaders Europe 2022, a conference in London on November 10-11 organised by Reuters Events, is going to bring together senior lawyers from scores of companies, among them Deutsche Bank, Barclays, BNP Paribas, Lloyds, Zurich Insurance, KPMG and Thomson Reuters. There is a diversity of issues on the agenda, including trends in legal tech, the… Continue Reading
IPO of medical firm advised by Riyadh’s Aldukheil Financial Group 540% oversubscribed
By Andrei Skvarsky. Saudi investment advisory Aldukheil Financial Group (AFG) has piloted a Saudi medical services company through a recent initial public offering (IPO) that was nearly 540 per cent oversubscribed and raised about $22m for the health care firm. Investors subscribed to all 1.4m ordinary shares floated by Naba Alsaha Medical Services Co. at… Continue Reading
EVENTS: NorthAm food industry, supply chain issues to be raised at Reuters-hosted forums in November
Reuters Events is going to host two conferences in Chicago on November 1-2 to deal with key issues in North America’s food industry, agriculture and supply chains – Transform Food USA 2022 and Transform Supply Chains 2022. More than 60 speakers are expected to address each of the two in-person co-located conferences. There are about… Continue Reading
NY fintech Inveniam pulls into in Brazil via deal with Growth Tech
By Andrei Skvarsky. Inveniam Capital Partners, a New York-headquartered financial technology company operating a digital services platform, said it has “definitively entered” the Brazilian market by clinching a partnership deal with Brazilian blockchain developer Growth Tech. Growth Tech, a startup whose blockchain solutions are mainly focused on real estate, “is in the process of incorporating… Continue Reading
Abu Dhabi Uzbek Investment puts $10m into Uzbek fertiliser maker Ifoda via bonds
Uzbek private equity firm Abu Dhabi Uzbek Investment (ADUI) has put 110bn Uzbek soum ($10.1m) into key Uzbek fertiliser producer Ifoda via a bond project. Central Asia-focused Bluestone Investment Bank acted as adviser to Ifoda, the bond issuer, on the placement of the securities. ADUI, a $1bn company headquartered in Tashkent and established by two… Continue Reading
MENA’s 2022 business scene marked by IPOs galore – EY
There were six times as many initial public offerings (IPOs) in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region in the first half of 2022 as the grouping of about 20 countries witnessed in H1 2021, according to global professional services group EY. Twenty-four MENA-based companies, including two financial firms – the Saudi Home Loans… Continue Reading
Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank reports surging popularity of digital platform
By Andrei Skvarsky. Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank (ADIB) said deals carried out through its ADIB Direct digital banking platform for businesses have grown in number by 88 per cent since the lender launched the facility in 2019. ADIB Direct offers a suite of solutions and is accessible through the internet, mobile phones and smart watches,… Continue Reading
Half a dozen UAE banks report serious net profit increases
By Andrei Skvarsky. Nearly half of the United Arab Emirates’ banks have published their financial results for the first half of 2022, almost all of them reporting substantial year-on-year net profit increases. First Abu Dhabi Bank reported the highest profit of 8bn Emirati dirhams ($2.2bn) and said in a statement that this was 50 per… Continue Reading
The Trading Pit hires Periklis Hanna as head of marketing operations
The Trading Pit, a company headquartered in Bavaria and trading in a variety of assets, including futures and cryptocurrencies, has announced it has hired Periklis Hanna as head of marketing operations. The Trading Pit offers facilities for trading in assets such as cryptos, shares, foreign exchange, options, futures for a diversity of commodities and contracts… Continue Reading
Permira Credit hires ex-Carlyle manager Ian Jackson to oversee strategy unit
Global investment firm Permira said Ian Jackson, a former senior manager at financial services corporation Carlyle and Deutsche Bank, has been hired to head Permira Strategic Opportunities (PSO) at Permira Credit, the firm’s credit investment arm. Jackson spent 13 and a half years at The Carlyle Group, which is a multinational company headquartered in Washington,… Continue Reading
Dubai’s Mubadala spearheads $100m funding for Swedish neobank Juni
Emirati state-owned investment company Mubadala said on Twitter that its asset management arm, Mubadala Capital, had recently led a $100m Series B financing round for Swedish neobank Juni. Juni, which is headquartered in Gothenburg, is a business-to-business firm providing services for e-commerce companies. Mubadala, whose full name is Mubadala Investment Company, is based in Dubai. Continue Reading
EQT, Mubadala to buy out container maker Envirotainer from Cinven, Novo Holdings
By Andrei Skvarsky. Stockholm-headquartered EQT Private Equity and Abu Dhabi sovereign investment company Mubadala have clinched a deal to acquire Envirotainer, a provider of temperature-controlled containers for the air transport of biopharmaceuticals. The price that EQT Private Equity, a division of global investment group EQT, and Mubadala have agreed to pay the sellers, British private… Continue Reading
Reuters Events explains planned global ESG reporting standards
Reuters Events have produced a complimentary report explaining internationally agreed ESG performance reporting standards that are planned to replace the current global diversity of sustainability reporting requirements. Specifically, the 17-page brief goes into similarities and differences between the planned global standards and current European reporting practices. The planned procedural uniformity would put an end to… Continue Reading
Sumsub says its kit enables NiceHash crypto firm to avoid most of fraud, security incidents threatening it
By Andrei Skvarsky. A toolkit developed by identity verification firm Sumsub has enabled its client NiceHash, a cryptocurrency mining platform and exchange, to boost its rate of avoidance of fraud attempts and security incidents by 80 per cent, according to Sumsub. The kit is an all-in-one solution that enables NiceHash to meet differing requirements set… Continue Reading
EVENTS: Legal Leaders USA 2022, NY, May 23-24
More than 40 speakers are going to address an audience of over 200 at Legal Leaders USA 2022, an in-person conference of company lawyers in New York on May 23-24 with a busy agenda including challenges such as increasingly numerous and complex regulations, business based on environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria, and new technology.… Continue Reading