Author: Arabian Media staff

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Chinese billionaire Li Zhenguo has stepped back from the day-to-day management of Longi, the solar giant he founded 25 years ago, highlighting turmoil in the industry as falling profits and factory overcapacity undermine years of rapid growth.The 57-year-old has been replaced as general manager by group chair and top lieutenant Zhong Baoshen, according to a stock exchange filing on Monday.Longi said Li would focus on research and development and other technology efforts. The position of controlling shareholder and “actual controller” — both…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Good morning. President Donald Trump announced on Sunday that the 50 per cent tariffs on EU imports, which he threatened would start on June 1, would be delayed until July 9. If only we had a handy acronym for this sort of thing! Email me with suggestions: robert.armstrong@ft.com. Stablecoins: it doesn’t take a Genius A stablecoin issuer is a bank and a stablecoin is a bank deposit. This is not complicated. If you hand me money and I invest it, and in return…

Picking orders at an enormous warehouse kitted out with robots was less physically demanding than other fulfilment roles that required her to do the heavy lifting, says Jessica, an Amazon worker in her 40s. But she also realised from her very first shift that the job was “frankly, damn boring”.She would spend up to 12 hours standing in one place, selecting items from a bin transported to her by one of dozens of robots whizzing around the floor. Compared with non-automated facilities, the pace of work was faster and often out of her control, which she found stressful. “When you…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Robot dogs are multiplying fast around the world, metamorphosing from amusing playthings to trusted companions deployed in a wide range of terrains from production plants to battlefields.The growing use of the caninoids is part of a wider revolution in robotics, as advances in both hardware and software make the machines better able to adapt to difficult environments.The mechanised quadrupeds hit a sweet spot by being both useful and predictable. They share crucial attributes with androids such as being able to walk. But…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.EU regulators are planning their first stress test to look for vulnerabilities in the financial system outside of banks, reflecting fears about the rapid growth of less regulated groups such as hedge funds and private equity.The plans by European authorities to examine the impact on the wider financial system of a potential market crisis, which would also include pension funds and insurers, follow a similar debut exercise by the Bank of England last year.Officials at the EU’s main financial watchdogs are still…

This article is an on-site version of our Europe Express newsletter. Premium subscribers can sign up here to get the newsletter delivered every weekday and fortnightly on Saturday morning. Standard subscribers can upgrade to Premium here, or explore all FT newslettersGood morning. A scoop to start: EU regulators are planning their first stress test of non-bank financial institutions, people involved in the talks told the Financial Times, in a move likely to spark concern among hedge funds, private credit groups and money market funds that could be subjected to greater scrutiny and restrictions.Today, our trade supremo assesses the EU’s waning…

Four of Europe’s oldest industrial groups have added more than €150bn to their market caps on the back of soaring demand for data centres driven by the boom in artificial intelligence. European makers of everything from switches to smart meters are providing the servers and infrastructure that power data centres for large language models and cloud computing, with traditional makers of electric equipment such as Legrand doubling their revenues thanks to data centres in recent years.“We’re not putting $70 or $80bn on the table like Microsoft and Meta,” said Franck Lemery, chief financial officer of Legrand. “[But] we [provide] the…

Inflation expectations are controversial for obvious reasons.You go to the public, ask them how they think prices will change over a selection of different time periods, and then draw conclusions about what might actually happen.Capturing this data is a core function of the Bank of England’s Inflation Attitudes Survey, carried out quarterly by pollster Ipsos via its “proprietary panel” and “trusted partners”. The survey’s methodology says a “rigorous set of quality procedures” ensure that these panellists are “real, unique, fresh (not over surveyed on the topic), and engaged”. It does not particularly care whether they know the slightest thing about…

Image: Emirates/ Ales Photography Emirates Airline is experiencing a period of robust expansion and strategic partnerships, a drive keenly felt at the recent Arabian Travel Market (ATM) in Dubai. In a conversation with Gulf Business editor, Neesha Salian, at the bustling Emirates stand, Adnan Kazim, the airline’s chief commercial officer, shed light on the airline’s multifaceted approach to growth, emphasising network expansion and enhanced customer experiences. “ATM is a very important annual event for us,” Kazim stated, noting its unique ability to gather over 2,800 participants from across the globe, especially fostering engagement with destinations in Africa, Asia, and the…

One scoop to start: The Trump family media company plans to raise $3bn to buy cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, in a bet on the kind of digital assets that have been championed by the US president’s administration.And in case you missed it: SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son has floated the idea of creating a joint US-Japan sovereign wealth fund to make large-scale investments in tech and infrastructure across the US.Welcome to Due Diligence, your briefing on dealmaking, private equity and corporate finance. This article is an on-site version of the newsletter. Premium subscribers can sign up here to get the newsletter…