Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund is weighing the sale of three European hotels operated by InterContinental, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
Qatar Investment Authority has yet to appoint brokers for a possible sale of the properties in Cannes, Amsterdam and Frankfurt, the people told Bloomberg, asking not to be identified. A final decision about a sale has yet to be made, they said.
QIA, which has about $320 billion of assets, bought the hotels in 2014 as part of a wider push into luxury hotels. The country has been drawing on its wealth fund over the past 11 months to help stave off the impact of a diplomatic and economic boycott led by its larger neighbours Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
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QIA trims Tiffany stake in latest selldown amid economic crisis
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The fund’s hotel arm Katara owns a number of other hotels in Europe including Le Royal Monceau, Raffles Paris in the French capital, the Hotel Schweizerhof in Bern and The Westin Excelsior in Rome, according to its website.
Representatives for QIA did not comment.
Last month, The National reported that Qatar Holding, a unit of the QIA, sold its stake in Hong Kong's Lifestyle International Holding and Lifestyle China Group for HK$5.2bn Hong Kong dollars (Dh2.43bn) in late March.
The sale came amid a number of divestitures that the QIA has made since the June boycott came into effect, including a reduction in its stake in Credit Suisse, Switzerland’s second-biggest bank, and the luxury jeweller Tiffany’s. The sale of 4.4 million shares of Tiffany raised about $417 million. In the case of Credit Suisse, the QIA reduced its stake in the Swiss bank by not participating in its capital increase last year.
In March, Qatari Diar, the property unit of the QIA, said it was selling 26.1 million shares in Veolia Environnement for about $640m.
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Know your cyber adversaries
Cryptojacking: Compromises a device or network to mine cryptocurrencies without an organisation's knowledge.
Distributed denial-of-service: Floods systems, servers or networks with information, effectively blocking them.
Man-in-the-middle attack: Intercepts two-way communication to obtain information, spy on participants or alter the outcome.
Malware: Installs itself in a network when a user clicks on a compromised link or email attachment.
Phishing: Aims to secure personal information, such as passwords and credit card numbers.
Ransomware: Encrypts user data, denying access and demands a payment to decrypt it.
Spyware: Collects information without the user's knowledge, which is then passed on to bad actors.
Trojans: Create a backdoor into systems, which becomes a point of entry for an attack.
Viruses: Infect applications in a system and replicate themselves as they go, just like their biological counterparts.
Worms: Send copies of themselves to other users or contacts. They don't attack the system, but they overload it.
Zero-day exploit: Exploits a vulnerability in software before a fix is found.
How to protect yourself when air quality drops
Install an air filter in your home.
Close your windows and turn on the AC.
Shower or bath after being outside.
Wear a face mask.
Stay indoors when conditions are particularly poor.
If driving, turn your engine off when stationary.
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Verona 1 (Verre 19' pen)
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Tips for entertaining with ease
· Set the table the night before. It’s a small job but it will make you feel more organised once done.
· As the host, your mood sets the tone. If people arrive to find you red-faced and harried, they’re not going to relax until you do. Take a deep breath and try to exude calm energy.
· Guests tend to turn up thirsty. Fill a big jug with iced water and lemon or lime slices and encourage people to help themselves.
· Have some background music on to help create a bit of ambience and fill any initial lulls in conversations.
· The meal certainly doesn’t need to be ready the moment your guests step through the door, but if there’s a nibble or two that can be passed around it will ward off hunger pangs and buy you a bit more time in the kitchen.
· You absolutely don’t have to make every element of the brunch from scratch. Take inspiration from our ideas for ready-made extras and by all means pick up a store-bought dessert.
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ACL Elite (West) - fixtures
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More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
More than 3.5 million Indians reside in UAE
Indian tourists can make purchases in UAE using rupee accounts in India through QR-code-based UPI real-time payment systems
Indian residents in UAE can use their non-resident NRO and NRE accounts held in Indian banks linked to a UAE mobile number for UPI transactions
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Tomato and walnut salad
A lesson in simple, seasonal eating. Wedges of tomato, chunks of cucumber, thinly sliced red onion, coriander or parsley leaves, and perhaps some fresh dill are drizzled with a crushed walnut and garlic dressing. Do consider yourself warned: if you eat this salad in Georgia during the summer months, the tomatoes will be so ripe and flavourful that every tomato you eat from that day forth will taste lacklustre in comparison.
Badrijani nigvzit
A delicious vegetarian snack or starter. It consists of thinly sliced, fried then cooled aubergine smothered with a thick and creamy walnut sauce and folded or rolled. Take note, even though it seems like you should be able to pick these morsels up with your hands, they’re not as durable as they look. A knife and fork is the way to go.
Pkhali
This healthy little dish (a nice antidote to the khachapuri) is usually made with steamed then chopped cabbage, spinach, beetroot or green beans, combined with walnuts, garlic and herbs to make a vegetable pâté or paste. The mix is then often formed into rounds, chilled in the fridge and topped with pomegranate seeds before being served.