Egypt’s largest asset management firm, Beltone Financial, is launching a new fund to attract investments from GCC countries, Europe, and the US. According to Beltone Financial CEO, Bassem Azzab, the fund will be worth $1 billion and will target raising $150,000 to $200,000 million during its first funding phase. “We have already begun talks with…
Global communications company Grey Group acquired a majority stake in Dubai-based digital marketing agency hug digital, it announced on Monday. "We're very excited about our new partnership," stated Oussama Jamal, chairman of hug digital, which he co-founded in 2009. "We are eager to take our digital expertise and knowledge of the MENA region and scale this…
Minister of Investment and International Cooperation Sahar Nasr met with Khuloud Al Omian, editor in chief of Forbes Middle East and chief executive officer of Dar Al-Arabi Publishing House. Representatives of Forbes Media Group in Cairo, Saad Zaghloul and research director Ahmed Mabrouk, were also present. Nasr discussed the Ministry of Investment’s sponsorship of the…
As India celebrates its 70th year of independence from the British on August 15, the press has been filled with retrospectives asking the usual decennial question: Has India succeeded or has it failed? The Financial Times’ data-driven package illustrated in charts the progress India has made since 1947, but also its shortfalls. At independence, for…
The oil shock of 2015 and dwindling margins in the resources space triggered an active diversification strategy that saw emerging markets competing eagerly to attract foreign direct investment. Adeniyi Makanjuola and Harry Ackerman worked closely for many years in mining and oil & gas exploration in West Africa and the Middle East. Makanjuola, a trained…
Companies specializing in fast-tracking the process of obtaining a second nationality have been popping up across the UAE These firms exist around the globe, but Dubai has become a hub for the growing industry. While the UAE doesn’t recognize dual nationality among its citizens. However, these companies have found a market because of the massive…
For a city that has over 9,000 years of history, Amman is also, in many ways, very young. I feel it is one of the most dynamic cities in the Middle East right now; one that is forward thinking, creative, and hungry for growth. This marrying of the traditional and modern is just one of…
Can you tell me about how you met and what led to the setting up of Pomalo? We both grew up in Jordan and that is where we met. Only much later, after studies in the U.K. and plenty of travelling, the idea for experiential travel surfaced. Pomalo, the company name, was inspired by a…
Kuwait’s Insurance Company SAK announced registering a staggering increase of 735% in revenues during the first half of 2017 compared to the same period in 2016. According to the company’s bi-annual report, SAK made revenues of 6.5 million Kuwaiti Dinars ($21.5 million), as opposed to registering a loss of 1.02 million Dinars ($3.3 million) during…
Venture capital firm Benchmark has been asked by a group of Uber shareholders to step down from the board. This comes after Benchmark filed a lawsuit against former CEO Travis Kalanick, accusing him of “fraud, breaches of fiduciary duty, and breaches of contractual obligations […]”. The lawsuit against Kalanick was filed on August 10th to…
The MENA region’s entrepreneurial ecosystem, which has been developing significantly over the years is set to rapidly flourish. With key investments from major international players, the region is positioned to diversify product offerings and propel entrepreneurship. In early 2017, Amazon completed the acquisition of leading UAE online retailer, Souq.com, for a staggering $800 billion, in…
Wanting to play his part in aiding the difficult economic state of his country, Egyptian entrepreneur Ahmed Saeed Al Feki has launched a business focused on manufacturing minicars. Al Feki hopes to eliminate the need for the import of the famed Tuk-Tuk (a small, three-wheeled motorized vehicle) that many Egyptians in rural and populated areas…
Depending on the dynamic of each organization, the orientation period at a new workplace can be either grueling or empowering. Orientation or onboarding set-ups can have a domino-effect on productivity – when positive, they breed quicker pickup, better handovers, lower employee turnover and generally happy employees. A poorly-handled onboarding will result in traumatized new hires…
With massive success and popularity that swept across global retail and fashion markets in no more than nine years since the brand’s launch in 2008, The Kooples’ business is flourishing in the GCC. The introduction to the Gulf market started in 2014, when The Kooples’ founder and CEO, Nicolas Dreyfus was approached to include his…
The Walt Disney Company has announced that starting early 2019 it will cease distribution of its content to Netflix and will launch its own branded direct-to-consumer streaming service. This new streaming service will be driven by BAMTech, a technology company that specializes in direct-to-consumer video platforms. BAMTech currently handles video content for American premium cable…
Prince Alwaleed bin Talal is investing $800 million into the expansion of the Four Seasons resort in Sharm el-Sheikh, a popular tourist destination in Egypt, the country’s Ministry of Investment and International Cooperation (MIIC) announced on Monday. The chair of Kingdom Holding Company, which has stakes in companies such as Apple, Time Warner and Twitter,…
Hailed as “the next Dubai,” Iraqi Kurdistan enjoyed breakneck economic growth amid an era of stability and safety. That was, until the so-called ISIS brought it all to a grinding halt. New commercial towers and shopping centers began to dot the capital city, trading was set to open at the first Kurdish stock exchange, and…
American venture capital firm and Uber investor, Benchmark, announced via Twitter that their analysis on Uber indicates the company could be worth over $100 billion over the next two years. The series of tweets expresses Benchmark’s confidence in Uber, “Despite speculation to the contrary,” the firm wrote on Twitter. According to Forbes, Uber is estimated…
Dubai-based ride-hailing app Careem announced today an investment from Didi Chuxing, a Chinese ride-sharing giant. The investment amount was not disclosed. “Didi Chuxing brings leading edge AI capabilities, insight and expertise to our organization as we enter our next phase of growth,” said Mudassir Sheikha, CEO and co-founder of Careem in a press release. “This…
It is shaping up to be a vintage year for European equities. A muted narrative surrounding the region has become received wisdom for investors, yet this “cool to be cautious” mentality is increasingly at odds with both fundamentals and the direction of markets. This started to become apparent in the latter half of 2016. Both…