Global exchanges, including New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq, have supported Chinese companies during the past decade as they attempted to expand their IPO business. AFP
Global exchanges, including New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq, have supported Chinese companies during the past decade as they attempted to expand their IPO business. AFP
Global exchanges, including New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq, have supported Chinese companies during the past decade as they attempted to expand their IPO business. AFP
Global exchanges, including New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq, have supported Chinese companies during the past decade as they attempted to expand their IPO business. AFP

New York Stock Exchange to delist Chinese telco giants on US executive order


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The New York Stock Exchange said it will delist three Chinese corporations to comply with a US executive order that imposed restrictions on companies identified as affiliated with the Chinese military.

China Mobile, China Telecom, China Unicom Hong Kong will be suspended from trading between January 7 and January 11, and proceedings to delist them have started, according to a statement by the exchange.

Quantitative hedge fund managers including Renaissance Technologies, Dimensional Fund Advisors and Two Sigma Investments were among the largest holders in these US listings but the stakes they held at the end of September were small, filings show.

The three Chinese companies have separate listings in Hong Kong. All generate all of their revenue in China and have no meaningful presence in the US except for their listings there.

Their shares are also thinly traded on the New York Stock Exchange compared to their primary listings in Hong Kong, making this delisting more of a symbolic blow amid heightened geopolitical friction between the US and China.

US President Donald Trump signed an order in November barring American investments in Chinese firms owned or controlled by the military, in a bid to pressure Beijing over what it alleges are abusive business practices. The order prohibited US investors from buying and selling shares in a list of Chinese companies designated by the Pentagon as having military ties.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry later accused the US of “viciously slandering” its military-civilian integration policies and vowed to protect the country’s companies. Chinese officials have also threatened to respond to previous actions with their own blacklist of US companies.

The US Federal Communications Commission in May barred China Mobile from operating in the US. In December, it ordered carriers to remove equipment made by Huawei, and started looking into whether China Telecom should be allowed to operate in the country. China Telecom’s US unit told the FCC in a June 8 filing that it is an independent business based in the US and not subject to Chinese government control.

Global exchanges, including New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq, courted Chinese companies during the past decade as they attempted to expand their IPO business, particularly in the internet sector.

In response, Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing changed its rules in recent years to lure back listings, including allowing share sales by companies with weighted voting rights - strengthening the power of company founders at the expense of weaker protections for minority investors.

Companies including e-commerce giants Alibaba and JD.com, which already had listings in New York, conducted secondary listings in Hong Kong in the past two years as tensions between the US and China intensified on a range of issues including trade and the coronavirus.

THE SPECS

Engine: Four-cylinder 2.5-litre

Transmission: Seven-speed auto

Power: 165hp

Torque: 241Nm

Price: Dh99,900 to Dh134,000

On sale: now

How to get exposure to gold

Although you can buy gold easily on the Dubai markets, the problem with buying physical bars, coins or jewellery is that you then have storage, security and insurance issues.

A far easier option is to invest in a low-cost exchange traded fund (ETF) that invests in the precious metal instead, for example, ETFS Physical Gold (PHAU) and iShares Physical Gold (SGLN) both track physical gold. The VanEck Vectors Gold Miners ETF invests directly in mining companies.

Alternatively, BlackRock Gold & General seeks to achieve long-term capital growth primarily through an actively managed portfolio of gold mining, commodity and precious-metal related shares. Its largest portfolio holdings include gold miners Newcrest Mining, Barrick Gold Corp, Agnico Eagle Mines and the NewMont Goldcorp.

Brave investors could take on the added risk of buying individual gold mining stocks, many of which have performed wonderfully well lately.

London-listed Centamin is up more than 70 per cent in just three months, although in a sign of its volatility, it is down 5 per cent on two years ago. Trans-Siberian Gold, listed on London's alternative investment market (AIM) for small stocks, has seen its share price almost quadruple from 34p to 124p over the same period, but do not assume this kind of runaway growth can continue for long

However, buying individual equities like these is highly risky, as their share prices can crash just as quickly, which isn't what what you want from a supposedly safe haven.

The story in numbers

18

This is how many recognised sects Lebanon is home to, along with about four million citizens

450,000

More than this many Palestinian refugees are registered with UNRWA in Lebanon, with about 45 per cent of them living in the country’s 12 refugee camps

1.5 million

There are just under 1 million Syrian refugees registered with the UN, although the government puts the figure upwards of 1.5m

73

The percentage of stateless people in Lebanon, who are not of Palestinian origin, born to a Lebanese mother, according to a 2012-2013 study by human rights organisation Frontiers Ruwad Association

18,000

The number of marriages recorded between Lebanese women and foreigners between the years 1995 and 2008, according to a 2009 study backed by the UN Development Programme

77,400

The number of people believed to be affected by the current nationality law, according to the 2009 UN study

4,926

This is how many Lebanese-Palestinian households there were in Lebanon in 2016, according to a census by the Lebanese-Palestinian dialogue committee

Company Profile

Name: JustClean

Based: Kuwait with offices in other GCC countries

Launch year: 2016

Number of employees: 130

Sector: online laundry service

Funding: $12.9m from Kuwait-based Faith Capital Holding

UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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T20 WORLD CUP QUALIFIERS

Qualifier A, Muscat

(All matches to be streamed live on icc.tv) 

Fixtures

Friday, February 18: 10am Oman v Nepal, Canada v Philippines; 2pm Ireland v UAE, Germany v Bahrain 

Saturday, February 19: 10am Oman v Canada, Nepal v Philippines; 2pm UAE v Germany, Ireland v Bahrain 

Monday, February 21: 10am Ireland v Germany, UAE v Bahrain; 2pm Nepal v Canada, Oman v Philippines 

Tuesday, February 22: 2pm Semi-finals 

Thursday, February 24: 2pm Final 

UAE squad:Ahmed Raza(captain), Muhammad Waseem, Chirag Suri, Vriitya Aravind, Rohan Mustafa, Kashif Daud, Zahoor Khan, Alishan Sharafu, Raja Akifullah, Karthik Meiyappan, Junaid Siddique, Basil Hameed, Zafar Farid, Mohammed Boota, Mohammed Usman, Rahul Bhatia

Sole survivors
  • Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
  • George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
  • Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
  • Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.