Business

Share debacle a rare setback for Indian tycoon Adani

Indian billionaire Gautam Adani grinned as he posed this week for photos with Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu after acquiring one of the country’s main ports, in Haifa.

“I promise you that in the years to come, we will transform the skyline we see around us,” said Adani, his manner upbeat even as his business empire was losing billions.

For all the latest headlines, follow our Google News channel online or via the app.

Investors have been dumping Adani shares for more than a week after US short-selling firm Hindenburg Research put out a report alleging his businesses have engaged in fraud and stock price manipulation. The Adani group has denied this.

Before the debacle, Adani, 60, was Asia’s richest man and the third wealthiest in the world, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index. Not anymore.

The massive losses are a rare setback for the coal mining tycoon from western India’s Gujarat state and raise questions about what lies ahead.

Expansion has been at the heart of Adani’s success story. The son of a middle-class family in the Gujarat capital, Ahmedabad, he quit college to become a diamond trader in the country’s financial capital, Mumbai. He returned home to join his brother in importing plastics before establishing Adani Enterprises in the 1980s, trading in everything from shoes to buckets.

Adani shifted to investing in ports, construction and coal mining as India opened up its economy in the 1990s. A new middle class emerged and the ambitious businessman placed bets on providing energy to serve them.

Adani’s first big project, Mundra Port, is now India’s largest commercial port and he is the country’s biggest private port operator. Within a decade, he also became India’s largest developer and operator of coal mines.

Today, Adani companies also operate airports in major cities, build roads, generate electricity, manufacture defense equipment, develop agricultural drones, sell cooking oil and run a media outlet. He has his eyes set on becoming the world’s largest renewable energy player by 2030.

Citing market volatility, late Wednesday his flagship Adani Enterprises scrapped a $2.5 billion share offering that, despite the bloodletting in the group’s shares and a 28 percent plunge that day in its own share price, had been oversubscribed.

In a video address Thursday, Adani said the share offering was canceled to “insulate investors from potential losses.”

“For me, the interest of my investors is paramount and everything else is secondary,” he said.

The share offering was seen as a test of investor confidence in the self-made industrialist, whose ascent has been celebrated as a symbol of India’s economic ambitions. The Adani Group said in a statement that canceling the offering would not “have any impact on our existing operations and future plans.”

The Adani Group said its balance sheet was “very healthy” and its history of servicing debt was “impeccable.”

Still, Brian Freitas, a New Zealand-based analyst with Periscope Analytics who has researched the Adani Group, said the collapse in share prices for India’s second-largest conglomerate may hinder its future plans for expansion.

“It’s going to be difficult for them to raise new money,” he said.

Adani shares are still losing value. Shares in Adani Enterprises tumbled 27 percent Thursday, while stock in six other Adani companies fell 5 percent-10 percent.

The tycoon, who favors a plain white shirt and dark trousers over fancy dress and is said to be affable and quiet spoken, slid from being the world’s third richest man to the 13th as his fortune sank to $72 billion, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaire Index. Prior to the Hindenburg report, his net worth was about $120 billion.

More vitally, the company is now without the funds it had hoped to raise in this week’s offering. Companies often launch such share offerings to finance growth while reducing debt.

“Thanks to the short-seller, Adani’s plans will get slowed down significantly,” said R.N. Bhaskar, a journalist who wrote a biography on Adani.

Analysts say that rapid expansion has largely been fueled by borrowing. The group’s debt stands at $30 billion, out of which $9 billion is from Indian banks, the group’s chief financial officer said recently.

After the stock rout of the past week, lenders may deem his group high risk and toughen their criteria for borrowing, like demanding higher interest rates or more collateral, said Freitas.

“Equity investors are going to be wary because the stock isn’t doing well — if they can’t raise equity, they will have to go to the debt market,” he added. “Given the situation, foreign lenders will think twice before lending any new money to Adani.”

Despite Adani’s longstanding ties with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a fellow Gujarati, and other powerful politicians, the government has so far remained silent on his recent troubles even as pressure from the political opposition for an investigation into Adani’s situation grows.

In recent years, Adani has pumped money into sectors like agriculture, defense and renewable energy — all seen as high priorities for the Indian government.

Like Adani’s commitment to the port in Israel’s Haifa, many of the group’s overseas infrastructure projects, in countries such as Sri Lanka and Tanzania, have served as an Indian counterweight to rival China’s holdings.

The Haifa deal was a coup for India, located close to another port managed by the Shanghai International Port Group.

“India is working with great fervor with Israel on defense and technology, and Adani now has a port there. You think the Indian government can sniff at that?” said Bhaskar. “The thing is, you can’t wish away Adani — because he is indispensable at this point.”

He expects Adani to remain undaunted.

“The more challenging a situation gets, the more defiant and creative he becomes to overcome it,” Bhaskar said.

Indian magnate Adani says to keep investing in Israel after Haifa port takeover

Adani Group calls Hindenburg fraud claim a ‘calculated attack on India’

Business

Almarai signs multiple agreements to localize jobs through training and recruitment programs

Almarai signed a cooperation memorandum with the Food Industries Polytechnic, the
Transport General Authority, and the Saudi Logistics Academy to localize jobs in the
food and beverages sector through training and rehabilitation programs ending in
employment. This came within the first international conference on the labor market,
organized by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development on 13 – 14
December 2023 at the King Abdulaziz Convention Center in Riyadh.

‘These agreements are part of Almarai’s corporate program for the social responsibility
to achieve localization in the food industry sector, which is one of the top priorities of the
comprehensive strategic plans in Almarai, especially since the company is one of the
largest working environments in the kingdom, with more than 9,000 Saudi employees,
including more than 900 Saudi female employees.”Fahad Aldrees, Chief Human
Resources Officer of Almarai, said.

He added that the agreements signed to train and qualify young people are part of the
integrated initiatives and training and rehabilitation programs for national human
resources in Almarai. He pointed out that the company provided about half a million
employee training hours during 2022, raising its retention rate to 90% during 2022.

It is worth mentioning that Almarai is the world’s largest vertically integrated dairy
company, and the largest food and beverage producer and distributor in the Middle
East. Almarai was ranked among LinkedIn’s top 15 Saudi companies for professional
career development for 2022.

Business

SEBA Bank rebrands to AMINA Bank and continues to write its success story

a fully licensed Swiss crypto bank, announced today its new brand identity: AMINA Bank AG. The group operates
globally from its regulated hubs in Zug, Abu Dhabi and Hong Kong, offering its clients traditional and crypto banking services.
SEBA Bank made history in 2019 by becoming one of the first FINMA-regulated institutions to provide crypto banking services. This rebrand marks a new chapter for the company, which has proudly been in operation for more than four years. AMINA Bank is inspired by the same trailblazing ambition to lead the way for its clients and to write its own future as a Swiss-
regulated crypto bank offering services to its traditional and crypto savvy clients around the globe. The name ‘AMINA’ stems from the term ‘transAMINAtion’, meaning transference of one compound to another. AMINA is a brand driven by perpetual change, bringing together the various ‘compounds’ of traditional, digital, and crypto banking to unlock new potential and
growth for our clients. This vision of change represents the transformation of our clients’ financial future. Franz Bergmueller, CEO of AMINA, said: “We are delighted to introduce the world to our new brand identity. While we say goodbye to the SEBA name, we remain forever proud of the achievements made by the group under the former brand. “Our brand signifies a new era in the company’s growth and strategy; we are a key player in crypto banking and are here to define the future of finance. With our client-focused approach, our years of traversing traditional and crypto finance, we offer a platform for investors to build
wealth safely and under the highest regulatory standards.” “We are grateful to be encouraged by our supportive and committed investors who have been very helpful, supporting the growth of the company. We thank our employees in all the regions
for their dedication and client focus. As we look forward to 2024, our ambition is to accelerate the growth of our strategic hubs in Switzerland, Hong Kong, and Abu Dhabi, and to continue our global expansion, building on all the successes we have laid down over the past years.” Current clients of AMINA Bank (formerly SEBA Bank) will be unaffected by the rebrand other than encountering the new name; all operations will be business as usual across the board. The branch office based in Abu Dhabi and the subsidiaries in Hong Kong and Singapore will subsequently apply for a name change to align with the head office in Zug.

Business

Uptime Appoints Mustapha Louni Chief Business Officer

Uptime Institute is pleased to announce the appointment of Mustapha Louni to the position of Chief Business Officer, a role specifically created to drive strategic leadership and client success. In this new role, Mr. Louni will assume responsibility for the global Uptime sales and marketing organizations and drive overall business value for all Uptime clients. He will retain his existing responsibilities overseeing operations in the Middle East, India, Africa, and the Asia Pacific regions. In this elevated capacity, Mr. Louni is poised to play a pivotal role in driving Uptime’s next phase of global expansion through strategic initiatives to enhance market awareness of the dramatically expanding global service lines and delivery capabilities of Uptime that uniquely support the global data center industry in its pursuit of ever higher performance through elevated availability, resiliency, sustainability, and cyber-security of digital infrastructure. Louni’s appointment renews and expands Uptime

Institute 39;s 30-year commitment to advancing excellence in the data center sector on a global scale. “Today we are experiencing the next phase of the one-time, planetary transformation from analog to digital. This unprecedented, once-in-a-generation growth in data center demand is primarily driven by continuing cloud adoption, the new promise of AI, and the demonstrable fact
that hybrid digital infrastructure is here to stay for the foreseeable future,” said Martin McCarthy, CEO, Uptime Institute. “These complex and nuanced market demands require a visionary talent like Mustapha Louni. He is someone who cannot only deftly manage specific aspects of the business but also remain ahead of accelerating changes and trends. He continues to earn client
trust and respect by timely delivery on demanding commitments while he also inspires and energizes colleagues and clients alike. I am delighted to announce Mr. Louni’s new position and know that he will continue to expand the impact that he has already brought to Uptime since his arrival.” In 2014, Mr. Louni joined the Uptime organization in the United Arab Emirates, leveraging his extensive experience from roles at Panduit and Schneider Electric in Paris and Dubai. As the company’s first commercial resource in the Middle East and Africa region, Mr. Louni played a pivotal role in expanding Uptime’s presence. Within a year, he successfully established what became and remains Uptime’s fastest growing regional office. Under his leadership, Uptime has
extended his impressive trajectory of growth in MEA to the Asia-Pacific regions, augmenting the Uptime workforce with dedicated team members spanning more than a dozen countries across these regions. A new Uptime office has been inaugurated in Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) this year, further fortifying the company’s ability to meet its commitment to sustained
growth and excellence and serve clients in critical, accelerating markets for digital infrastructure.

Uptime Institute began development of its proprietary and now globally recognized Tier Standards and its Tier Certifications 30 years ago to ensure that the mission critical computing needs of all organizations could be met with confidence and understood by executive management. Since that time, Uptime Tier Certification as well as other Uptime offerings including assessments and awards in digital infrastructure for ensuring business performance in areas of management and operations, risk and resilience, sustainability, and more recently cyber- security have gained global adoption. Uptime’s expanding success is based on delivering a
unique business service that is based upon unparalleled engineering excellence and technical mastery, while remaining vendor independent and technology agnostic.