Dubai’s Tecom IPO Set to Price at Top of Range, Bucking Selloff – Bloomberg — www.bloomberg.com
Highlights:
– Tecom’s IPO is the second of 10 planned privatizations as part of Dubai’s plans to deepen its capital markets after years of flagging volumes. The first of these share sales, Dubai Electricity & Water Authority’s $6.1 billion offering in April, drew overwhelming demand from both regional and international investors and ranks as the world’s second-biggest IPO of the year.
– Tecom houses more than 7,500 companies and 10 large business complexes including Dubai Internet City and Dubai Media City. Its customers include Microsoft Corp., Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Meta Platforms Inc.’s Facebook.
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New Hedge Fund Hotspot? Dubai Draws More Finance Firms – Bloomberg — www.bloomberg.com
Highlights:
– Brexit has spurred many funds to seek new bases outside the City of London, while some traders have fled Hong Kong’s strict Covid restrictions. And with living costs soaring around the world, Dubai’s tax-free welcome mat has seldom looked so appealing.
– For fund managers making the move, the city offers a fertile ground of high net worth individuals and institutional investors. The United Arab Emirates is set to attract a net inflow of 4,000 millionaires this year, the most of any country globally, according to consultancy Henley & Partners.
– “It makes sense with lockdowns in Asia that financial centres like Dubai are becoming a destination for hedge funds,” said Whitney Baker, the New York-based founder of Totem Macro and former head of emerging markets at Bridgewater Associates.
– Stricter visa requirements, hiring restrictions and other bureaucratic roadblocks are also limiting Singapore’s appeal to money managers
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Exxon Mobil (NYSE:XOM) Takes Stake in $29 Billion Qatar Gas Project – Bloomberg — www.bloomberg.com
Highlights:
– The US oil giant will take a 6.25% stake in the North Field East project — the biggest in the gas industry — that’s expected to start operating in early 2026. The expansion will increase Qatar’s liquefied natural gas capacity to 110 million tons annually from 77 million, just as demand surges across the world.
– Qatar is planning a second expansion phase called North Field South. That will raise the country’s LNG production to 126 million tons a year. Many of the partners for that project will be the same as those on North Field East, Qatar’s government has said.
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Elon Musk’s Twitter (TWTR) Bid Includes Financier Linked to Russian Tycoon – Bloomberg — www.bloomberg.com
Highlights:
– Vy, whose equity commitment to the $44 billion deal topped those by Brookfield Asset Management and Qatar, has also backed companies such as Musk’s Boring Co. and crypto exchange ErisX, according to PitchBook data.
– He’s also put money into the Tesla Inc. boss’s rocket company SpaceX and brain-machine maker Neuralink Corp. And according to LinkedIn, one of Vy’s summer analysts is currently Benjamin Birchall, a son of Musk’s key aide Jared Birchall.
– Tamas and Hering have the biggest individual holdings in Vy Global Growth, according to a securities filing.
– Dubai’s ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum appointed Tamas to an advisory council focused on the digital economy.
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Salt Bae Backers Seek New Investors and a $1 Billion Valuation – Bloomberg — www.bloomberg.com
Highlights:
– D.ream Group, owned by Turkish billionaire Ferit Sahenk’s Dogus Holding AS, may sell a 20% stake to the Qatar Investment Authority for about $300 million
– Dogus has been trying to raise cash and deliver on pledges it made to banks as part of a debt restructuring.
– D.ream Group owns stakes in restaurants including Nusr-Et, founded by butcher Nusret Gokce.
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EssilorLuxottica’s Leonardo Del Vecchio, Owner of Ray-Ban, Dies at 87 – Bloomberg — www.bloomberg.com
Highlights:
– Del Vecchio the second-largest fortune in Italy — after the chocolate-making Ferrero family — with a net worth of $25.7 billion
– In addition to a controlling stake in EssilorLuxottica, Del Vecchio’s Delfin holding also had interests in Italian financial companies such as Mediobanca SpA, Assicurazioni Generali SpA and UniCredit SpA.
– He founded Luxottica in 1961 with a dozen workers on land he got free from the town in a bid to stimulate the local economy.
– Luxottica started producing its own designs in the late 1960s, and in the 1980s, Del Vecchio began buying up companies in the US. In 1999, he purchased Ray-Ban for $640 million.
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Chicken on Track to Overtake Beef, Pork as Top Protein Source – Bloomberg
Highlights:
– In 2022 chicken consumption is expected to reach 98 million metric tons, double the amount eaten in 1999. That’s more than three times the growth rate of pork and 10 times that of beef, according to US government data.
– Global chicken consumption is on track to account for 41% of all meat-eating by 2030.
– Thanks to genetics and other innovations, the cost of rearing chickens has been pushed down repeatedly over the years.
– The cost of production vs. total output in poultry has probably fallen to a third of what it was 30 years ago, says Tai Lin, managing partner of Proterra Asia, a private equity firm that invests in the food industry.
– Some producers of slow-growing, less industrial chickens see a way to grow poultry as part of a system that’s both more humane and better for the environment. Yet no one has been able to bring such a system to scale.
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