Author: Arabian Media staff
In the late 1990s, as rebels overthrew the longtime dictator Mobutu Sese Seko in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo, Claudio Descalzi, then a 41-year-old regional manager for Italian oil major Eni, slept under his bed with his children to avoid being shot in the night.“My wife was pregnant. Fortunately she was able to leave the country. I remained stuck with my two girls,” he says. It was two years before he saw Italy again. “I was responsible for the expatriates who remained. Clearly, the last thing you think about is cash flow or operations.”It was not the…
Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Canada’s state-backed export agency has lost about £350mn on loans to Thames Water, the crisis-stricken UK utility that is teetering on the verge of renationalisation.Export Development Canada, which was established to help Canadian companies do business overseas, disclosed the losses, equivalent to more than half the money it lent to Thames Water, in its annual report and filings to the US Securities and Exchange Commission last week.The revelations follow a Financial Times report last year that the body had sold loans it…
Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.It has long been the job of the pub landlord to listen as regulars drown their sorrows. Now, it’s the publicans themselves who need a sympathetic ear: people are drinking less while running costs for establishments, notably taxes, have rocketed. But, as drinkers well know, it is always darkest just before opening time. Over the past 10 years, shares in each of the five listed UK pub groups have lost ground. If a brave investor had backed the same groups in the…
Mark Zuckerberg is betting more than $14bn that a well-connected 28-year-old is the catalyst his company needs to catch up with rivals racing to develop and commercialise artificial intelligence. The Meta chief struck a deal last week to buy 49 per cent of data labelling business Scale AI and hire its leader Alexandr Wang. Zuckerberg paid $14.3bn, marginally ahead of Scale’s last valuation. But ownership of the start-up is “basically incidental”, according to one Scale investor. The real prize was Wang. An executive at one of Meta’s biggest rivals said the move came after Zuckerberg decided Wang was the “wartime…
Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.London-based artificial intelligence start-up PhysicsX has raised $135mn from investors, valuing it at almost $1bn, as it becomes the latest company to benefit from a surge of interest in defence technology. The six-year-old start-up, founded by two former Formula 1 engineers, uses AI to better design products across the manufacturing and defence industries, such as engine and drone components. The deal, which has seen it attract funding from Siemens and Singapore state-backed Temasek, comes amid a flood of investor appetite for defence…
Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.What a busy life Filippo Gori must lead. The JPMorgan banker used to live in Hong Kong, where he headed the Wall Street bank’s Asia-Pacific business.He moved to London last year after he was given two big new jobs, co-head of global banking and head of Europe, the Middle East and Africa, or Emea as it is known in business speak.You might think that move made sense, considering his Emea responsibilities. But as FT readers learnt this week, Gori is about to…
Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for freeYour guide to what Trump’s second term means for Washington, business and the worldThe writer is a former prime minister of Italy, president of the Jacques Delors Institute and a dean at IE UniversityDonald Trump’s actions in his second term make clear that we are dealing with a long-term strategic vision that aims to reshape America’s global role, weaken multilateralism and increase pressure on allies, especially Europe. The US president is pursuing an agenda that forces the EU to face an urgent reality: it must strengthen its autonomy and capacity to act. Paradoxically,…
Chinese manufacturers are racing to find buyers at home and abroad as trade tensions with the US threaten their single largest export market.Chinese trade data released since US President Donald Trump announced high tariffs in April shows increased exports to alternative markets partially offsetting a plunge in US-bound shipments.The value of exports to Europe in May climbed 12 per cent from a year earlier, with shipments to Germany up 22 per cent. Exports to south-east Asian countries rose 15 per cent.Analysts said China’s manufacturers would be able to make up in other markets at least some of the sales lost…
US forces have hit Iran’s three main nuclear sites, President Donald Trump announced overnight. He warned Tehran that further strikes would follow unless it agreed to peace. “The strikes were a spectacular military success,” Trump said in a televised Oval Office address. “Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated.” He added: “If peace does not come quickly, we will go after those other targets with precision, speed and skill.” According to CBS News, the US approached Iran diplomatically on Saturday, signalling that no further attacks were planned and that Washington was not seeking regime change. Trump…
President Donald Trump announced late Saturday the U.S. had joined Israel’s attack on Iran’s nuclear sites, putting the country in the middle of a Middle Eastern war and setting up a potentially volatile market reaction. Source link