Abu Dhabi Firms Said to Weigh Bid for GEMS Education Stake – Bloomberg — www.bloomberg.com
– GEMS is owned by its founder Sunny Varkey and buyout firm CVC Capital Partners, who have been exploring options for their stakes in the business. Any sale may value GEMS at about $6 billion.
– Parents in the UAE are among the world’s biggest spenders when it comes to educating their children, contributing to a glut of private schools.
– GEMS, which traces its roots back about 60 years, operates more than 60 schools teaching over 130,000 students across the Middle East and North Africa.
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IMF Sees $1 Trillion Oil Exporter Windfall, Bigger Gulf Savings – Bloomberg — www.bloomberg.com
– Saudi Arabia and five other members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, already among the biggest winners in emerging markets, will benefit even more since they may save about a third of their oil revenues
– IMF. It predicts growth in remittances from the Gulf to the region’s poorer economies at between 1.9% to 3.4% annually in the medium term.
– Oil-exporting countries grew over the last couple of years not only because of the increase in oil prices and production but also because of the increase in the non-oil sector,” said Azour.
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Qatar Aims to Become the World’s Top LNG Trader, Says Minister – Bloomberg — www.bloomberg.com
– While Qatar is among the top LNG producers, it usually just delivers the fuel to long-term customers and historically hasn’t participated in much trading.
– Saad Al Kaabi, the nation’s energy minister and chief executive officer of state-owned QatarEnergy, said in an interview with Bloomberg TV, “We saw that a lot of our volume has been traded in some of the markets, and we think we can do this very well because of our size and because this competency was missing as far as trading was concerned.”
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Israel, Lebanon Agree US-Brokered Deal Over Gas-Rich Waters – Bloomberg — www.bloomberg.com
– The agreement will allow international companies to begin exploring for natural gas in previously-contested waters, potentially leading to more energy exports to Europe in the coming years.
– Iran-backed Hezbollah, a militant group in Lebanon opposed to Israel’s existence, has said it would accept the deal.
– Now that the countries have agreed on a maritime border, a TotalEnergies SE-led consortium will be able to start drilling in the Kana prospect, most of which lies in Lebanese territory. If gas is produced, both countries would be entitled to payments.
– Gas production from Kana is far from certain. Since no exploration wells have been drilled, the presence and quality of resources are unknown.
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Saudi Wealth Fund PIF Ready Billions in Domestic Stock Sales, Sources Say – Bloomberg — www.bloomberg.com
– Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund is pushing ahead with plans to reduce its stakes in some of the kingdom’s biggest companies and raise billions of dollars for new investments.
– The PIF hasn’t finalized the details of particular sales and may wait until next year before executing the transactions.
– The PIF is at the center of this plan, known as Vision 2030, plowing billions of dollars into stock markets and assets globally.
– The PIF also plans to invest $40 billion locally a year until 2025 and help bankroll ambitious projects.
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Saudi Arabia’s Economy Looks Great in a World Full of Bad Predictions – Bloomberg — www.bloomberg.com
– Prince Mohammed is sitting on his first budget surplus, allowing him to finance domestic mega-projects, channel the $620 billion Public Investment Fund (PIF) into assets globally, and project political clout in the region and beyond.
– Saudi Arabia still struggles to persuade the world it has an economy beyond oil that’s worth investing in. Most of those who’ve descended on Riyadh for the conference are looking to make connections and extract money from the kingdom, not pump it in.
– Karen Young, a senior research scholar at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy, says “there’s a mismatch between the business case for FDI in the kingdom, and an effort to brand the mega-projects as providing solutions to everything.”
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