Jakk Consultancy

October Fourth Week Newsletter of Middle East Business News – Issue #81

Abu Dhabi Transfers Etihad Ownership to Sovereign Wealth Fund – Bloombergwww.bloomberg.com

– Following the move, disclosed on Tuesday, ADQ will have interests ranging from the passenger airline, air freight, aircraft engineering and ground handling to ownership of Abu Dhabi Airports and a stake in a venture with Wizz Air Holdings Plc. It also oversees other key transport activities including Abu Dhabi Ports.

– ADQ, which has $110 billion of assets, will take over responsibility for Etihad from Abu Dhabi’s Supreme Council for Financial and Economic Affairs. The transfer follows a previous acquisition of some Etihad operations in 2021.

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KKR, Abu Dhabi Wealth Fund Mubadala Earmark $1 Billion for Private Credit – Bloombergwww.bloomberg.com

– The agreement, “strengthens Mubadala’s exposure in the rapidly growing APAC credit market.”

– Bucking an industry-wide slowdown, some of alternative-asset investors are building up their presence in Asia at a brisk pace.

– In Asia-Pacific, KKR said it has deployed nearly $3 billion in credit capital since 2019.

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Credit Suisse Needs a Smarter Play, Not a Gulf Bailout – Bloombergwww.bloomberg.com

– If the sovereign wealth funds with their brimming coffers want to join the big leagues, they’ll have to be controlling shareholders and show they can make strategic plays.

– During the financial crisis, they came in with big checks and walked away with small, minority stakes. Many of the investments didn’t turn out so well, and didn’t do much to establish their standing as either savvy investors or rescuers of the crippled global financial institutions.

– Playing a key funding role at a global institution, although a shadow of its former self (therefore, small enough) but still deeply embedded in the financial system, would bring the influence they want.

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Wall Street is heading to Saudi Arabia as a US spat over oil simmers – Bloombergwww.bloomberg.com

– “The savvy of Wall Street know their history well and know the difference between the short-term and political versus the long-term and strategic,” said Talal Malik, CEO at Saudi consultancy Alpha1Strategy. “With this kind of liquidity, it makes sense for US investment firms to ramp up their attendance.”

– Despite talk of possible no-shows, there are few signs US executives are pulling out.

– Organizers are seeing “more and more appetite from the US private sector to attend,” according to Richard Attias, CEO of FII Institute. The event “has zero political agenda” and “it’s a coincidence” that the US-Saudi tension is happening at the same time, he said.

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TRY/USD: Turkey Central Bank Ducks Questions on Flagship Lira Saving Tool – Bloombergwww.bloomberg.com

– Irfan Yanar, head of budget and financial reporting at the central bank, repeatedly declined to give a figure for the FX-protected deposit accounts, which guarantee savings against falls in the lira.

– Savers can open accounts with liras they already hold or with foreign currency they convert. If the lira falls by more than the account’s interest rate, the Treasury is responsible for paying the difference to the first group, and the central bank to the second.

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Egypt to Introduce Currency Hedging, Central Bank Governor Says – Bloombergwww.bloomberg.com

– We will make an index for the Egyptian pound through a group of other currencies in addition to gold in order to change the culture that we are linked to the dollar,” Hassan Abdalla, the central bank’s acting governor.

– the economic fallout of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and an exodus of foreign investors in its local debt have prompted a devaluation in March and kept the pound under pressure since then.

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