Search Site

Maaden raises $1.25bn in sukuk offering

The Sukuk were offered in a five-year and a 10-year tranche.

DAE net profit up 36.2%

Revenues grew by 9 percent to $1.42bn from $1.31bn in 2023.

Borouge 2024 net profit $1.24bn

The company said it will maintain a $1.3bn dividend for 2025.

ADQ, Orion to establish JV

The partners commit to deploying $1.2bn in the next four years.

Alpha Dhabi acquires interest in NCTH

The deal increases NCTH's portfolio to 8 hotels with 1,500 keys.

Fed policy tightening not at all bad for Gulf economies: Jefferies

  • A likely strengthening of the dollar, to which Gulf currencies are pegged, may push down inflation, because it makes imports less expensive
  • Higher interest rates on dollar-denominated assets tend to lead to outflows from emerging markets

The impending end of super-loose monetary policy from the Federal Reserve will have both positive and negative effects on the economies of the Arabian Gulf, according to Alia Moubayed, a managing director at investment bank Jefferies International.

A likely strengthening of the dollar, to which Gulf currencies are pegged, may push down inflation, because it makes imports less expensive, Moubayed said in an interview with the local media.

Higher interest rates on dollar-denominated assets tend to lead to outflows from emerging markets, but Moubayed said that the Gulf markets have recently witnessed an influx of foreign capital, especially into stocks, and so should not be affected as badly as many of their EM peers.

Higher interest rates will increase the financing burden on governments with large budget and trade deficits, such as Bahrain, Moubayed said.

However, countries such as Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE will “benefit from shrinking deficits due to the rise in oil prices and the increase in revenues in national currencies,” she said.

The Federal Reserve announced yesterday that it will likely start reducing its asset purchase program soon, and said policy makers are increasingly minded to start raising interest rates in 2022 instead of 2023 as previously envisioned.