Mukesh Ambani
Billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries is weighing a possible bid for Walgreens Boots Alliance’s international drugstore unit, sources said.
Reliance is at an early stage of exploring the feasibility of an offer for the Boots chain, the sources said.
Mr Ambani, the 11th-richest person in the world with a net worth of $94.9 billion, according to Bloomberg, is in the midst of pivoting his traditionally refining-focused conglomerate towards businesses that will better help him tap India’s billion-plus consumers. He has also been chasing deals in Europe’s telecoms sector.
Boots could be valued at as much as £7bn ($9.12bn) in a sale, Bloomberg previously reported.
Deliberations are ongoing and there is no certainty Reliance will decide to pursue an approach for Boots, the sources said.
Walgreens kicked off the sale of Boots earlier this year. It’s drawn interest from private equity firms including Apollo Global Management and TDR Capital. It attracted Bain Capital and CVC Capital Partners, which joined forces and were considered early favourites before abandoning their pursuit.
The bidders that remain keen on Boots could also consider teaming up, one of the people said.
Walgreens is weighing a potential initial public offering of Boots, which runs a chain of about 2,200 stores in the UK, if buyout interest is muted, Bloomberg News reported previously.
Some of the private equity bids have been well below Walgreens’s desired price, increasing the chances of a paused sales process or listing, the sources said.
The US-based company is expected to make a decision in the coming weeks and may opt to keep a minority stake in Boots in any transaction, they said.
Boots also has smaller operations in Ireland, Norway, the Netherlands and Thailand, as well as an optician business and a suite of private-label beauty and personal care brands that could be included in a sale.
Walgreens has been shifting toward expanding into other healthcare businesses in recent months, as pharmacies face increased competitive pressure from Amazon and other online retailers.
In October, it agreed to invest $5.2bn in primary care provider VillageMD, doubling its stake in the company.
George Kaiser
George Kaiser, whose parents left Germany for the Oklahoma oil patch, was already a billionaire before Russia invaded Ukraine and threw the global energy market into turmoil.
Still, a well-timed initial public offering of his Excelerate Energy has added $1.4bn to his fortune and boosted his net worth to $9.2bn, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
“We’ve been focused on providing energy to markets for a long time,” chief executive Steven Kobos said. “We feel we’re at a great point in time after nearly 20 years.”
The Biden administration last month said it planned to export 15 billion cubic metres of gas to Europe this year to help countries slash Russian imports, but getting the fuel across the Atlantic Ocean is no small feat.
It’s a complex process that requires cooling the gas to about -162 degrees Celsius, which liquefies it, then loading it onto specialised ships. Once at its destination, the cargo is warmed and converted back into gas.
Excelerate, which Mr Kaiser founded in 2003, controls a fifth of the world’s fleet of 46 floating storage and re-gasification units, or FSRUs, which can handle the conversion while anchored offshore. The vessels are either built-to-order or converted from older LNG tankers and can be installed in a matter of months, while onshore import terminals require additional infrastructure and take years to build.
Several European countries are already making plans to acquire such vessels. Last week, Finland and Estonia announced they would be jointly renting an FSRU to supply the Baltic countries with gas.
Last year, Excelerate generated $41 million of income on sales of $888.6m. About half of that revenue came from its FSRU and terminal services businesses, with the remainder from buying and re-selling gas.
Excelerate is Mr Kaiser’s second major energy holding. His biggest asset is Kaiser-Francis Oil, a Tulsa-based independent oil and gas exploration company founded by his father. The younger Kaiser took over the business in 1969 after earning an undergraduate degree and an MBA from Harvard University.
Since then, Mr Kaiser, 79, has built it into a major independent oil and gas producer. According to data from energy research site ShaleXP.com, it produces about 26,000 barrels of oil and 117,000 MCF of gas a day.
“He’s bullish on our strategy,” Mr Kobos said of Kaiser. “That’s evidenced by the fact that this IPO is not a liquidity event.”
Kaiser controls all of Excelerate’s Class B voting shares, giving him 77 per cent of the company’s total combined voting power. The George Kaiser Family Foundation will control another 7.9 per cent. It’s receiving shares in Excelerate in exchange for two FSRU ships it owns.
The foundation is active in the Tulsa area and reported $3.7bn in net assets at the end of 2019.
While Mr Kaiser isn’t an Excelerate officer, he can appoint three of six directors and holds certain other rights through a shareholder agreement with the company. In the event of Mr Kaiser’s death, those rights will transfer to his foundation for five years.
Warren Buffett
A New York city dinner between Warren Buffett and Alleghany chief executive Joseph Brandon kicked off one of Berkshire Hathaway’s latest deal hunts.
The pair met for dinner on March 7, when Mr Buffett made it clear that Berkshire was interested in buying Alleghany for $850 a share, according to a regulatory filing.
That conversation would jump-start Berkshire’s bid for Alleghany, which culminated in a $11.6bn deal for the insurer announced later that month.
It’s one of the biggest acquisitions in years for Berkshire and Mr Buffett, its billionaire chief executive.
He has revved up his deal machine recently, with the conglomerate also buying up shares in Occidental Petroleum and revealing a new equity bet on HP.
At that dinner, Mr Buffett said the price would not include fees for financial advisers. That quirk resulted in an odd $848.02 announced deal price.
The fee for Goldman Sachs Group, which is advising Alleghany, would come out of the proceeds for insurer’s shareholders.
The agreement would have to survive some push-back by Alleghany’s negotiators.
Jefferson Kirby, the company’s chairman, pushed Mr Buffett on the price at a meeting in Omaha, asking him to increase the offer or eliminate the deduction for the financial adviser fee.
He also pushed for a lucrative – but often unattainable – feature in a Buffett deal: using Berkshire shares as a portion of the offer.
Mr Buffett, who has talked about his dismay in using Berkshire stock to buy Dexter Shoe and General Re, held firm.
Goldman ultimately contacted 23 potential strategic bidders and eight potential financial-sponsor bidders during a “go-shop” period to see if they’d have a superior offer for Alleghany, the filing shows.
Charlie Munger
Daily Journal, a newspaper and software business that counts billionaire Charlie Munger as an overseer of its stock portfolio, cut its stake in Chinese internet company Alibaba Group Holding by roughly half.
The Los Angeles-based company owned 300,000 American depositary shares in Alibaba at the end of March, according to a regulatory filing. That’s down from 602,060 at the end of last year.
Daily Journal’s current Alibaba holdings are valued at about $31m.
For years, Mr Munger led Daily Journal as chairman, in addition to his role as a vice chairman at Mr Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway.
Daily Journal announced in March that the 98-year-old billionaire would step down from that role, but still hold a board seat and “continue to pay particular attention to matters with which he has been involved in the past, including the company’s securities portfolio”, according to a regulatory filing at the time.
He also said that he would donate $1m of his stock in the company to create an equity incentive plan.
Daily Journal is known for its collection of papers and for selling software to customers that include justice agencies and courts. The business also holds a collection of stocks in addition to its operating businesses, similar to Berkshire’s strategy of also investing while owning businesses.
Its stock portfolio consisted of five publicly disclosed investments at the end of March, which includes the Alibaba holding that it first started disclosing a year ago.
Mr Munger’s assistant said he had declined to comment on Daily Journal’s Alibaba stake.
Alibaba’s American depositary receipts slumped almost 50 per cent in 2021, and are down nearly 14 per cent this year.
3%20Body%20Problem
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It Was Just an Accident
Director: Jafar Panahi
Stars: Vahid Mobasseri, Mariam Afshari, Ebrahim Azizi, Hadis Pakbaten, Majid Panahi, Mohamad Ali Elyasmehr
Rating: 4/5
Our Time Has Come
Alyssa Ayres, Oxford University Press
SPECS
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UAE v Gibraltar
What: International friendly
When: 7pm kick off
Where: Rugby Park, Dubai Sports City
Admission: Free
Online: The match will be broadcast live on Dubai Exiles’ Facebook page
UAE squad: Lucas Waddington (Dubai Exiles), Gio Fourie (Exiles), Craig Nutt (Abu Dhabi Harlequins), Phil Brady (Harlequins), Daniel Perry (Dubai Hurricanes), Esekaia Dranibota (Harlequins), Matt Mills (Exiles), Jaen Botes (Exiles), Kristian Stinson (Exiles), Murray Reason (Abu Dhabi Saracens), Dave Knight (Hurricanes), Ross Samson (Jebel Ali Dragons), DuRandt Gerber (Exiles), Saki Naisau (Dragons), Andrew Powell (Hurricanes), Emosi Vacanau (Harlequins), Niko Volavola (Dragons), Matt Richards (Dragons), Luke Stevenson (Harlequins), Josh Ives (Dubai Sports City Eagles), Sean Stevens (Saracens), Thinus Steyn (Exiles)
Last five meetings
2013: South Korea 0-2 Brazil
2002: South Korea 2-3 Brazil
1999: South Korea 1-0 Brazil
1997: South Korea 1-2 Brazil
1995: South Korea 0-1 Brazil
Note: All friendlies
Euro 2020
Group A: Italy, Switzerland, Wales, Turkey
Group B: Belgium, Russia, Denmark, Finland
Group C: Netherlands, Ukraine, Austria,
Georgia/Kosovo/Belarus/North Macedonia
Group D: England, Croatia, Czech Republic,
Scotland/Israel/Norway/Serbia
Group E: Spain, Poland, Sweden,
N.Ireland/Bosnia/Slovakia/Ireland
Group F: Germany, France, Portugal,
Iceland/Romania/Bulgaria/Hungary
EA Sports FC 26
Publisher: EA Sports
Consoles: PC, PlayStation 4/5, Xbox Series X/S
Rating: 3/5
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
Director: Romany Saad
Starring: Mirfat Amin, Boumi Fouad and Tariq Al Ibyari
RESULT
Bournemouth 0 Southampton 3 (Djenepo (37', Redmond 45' 1, 59')
Man of the match Nathan Redmond (Southampton)
Barbie
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The%20specs
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Ten tax points to be aware of in 2026
1. Domestic VAT refund amendments: request your refund within five years
If a business does not apply for the refund on time, they lose their credit.
2. E-invoicing in the UAE
Businesses should continue preparing for the implementation of e-invoicing in the UAE, with 2026 a preparation and transition period ahead of phased mandatory adoption.
3. More tax audits
Tax authorities are increasingly using data already available across multiple filings to identify audit risks.
4. More beneficial VAT and excise tax penalty regime
Tax disputes are expected to become more frequent and more structured, with clearer administrative objection and appeal processes. The UAE has adopted a new penalty regime for VAT and excise disputes, which now mirrors the penalty regime for corporate tax.
5. Greater emphasis on statutory audit
There is a greater need for the accuracy of financial statements. The International Financial Reporting Standards standards need to be strictly adhered to and, as a result, the quality of the audits will need to increase.
6. Further transfer pricing enforcement
Transfer pricing enforcement, which refers to the practice of establishing prices for internal transactions between related entities, is expected to broaden in scope. The UAE will shortly open the possibility to negotiate advance pricing agreements, or essentially rulings for transfer pricing purposes.
7. Limited time periods for audits
Recent amendments also introduce a default five-year limitation period for tax audits and assessments, subject to specific statutory exceptions. While the standard audit and assessment period is five years, this may be extended to up to 15 years in cases involving fraud or tax evasion.
8. Pillar 2 implementation
Many multinational groups will begin to feel the practical effect of the Domestic Minimum Top-Up Tax (DMTT), the UAE's implementation of the OECD’s global minimum tax under Pillar 2. While the rules apply for financial years starting on or after January 1, 2025, it is 2026 that marks the transition to an operational phase.
9. Reduced compliance obligations for imported goods and services
Businesses that apply the reverse-charge mechanism for VAT purposes in the UAE may benefit from reduced compliance obligations.
10. Substance and CbC reporting focus
Tax authorities are expected to continue strengthening the enforcement of economic substance and Country-by-Country (CbC) reporting frameworks. In the UAE, these regimes are increasingly being used as risk-assessment tools, providing tax authorities with a comprehensive view of multinational groups’ global footprints and enabling them to assess whether profits are aligned with real economic activity.
Contributed by Thomas Vanhee and Hend Rashwan, Aurifer
Living in...
This article is part of a guide on where to live in the UAE. Our reporters will profile some of the country’s most desirable districts, provide an estimate of rental prices and introduce you to some of the residents who call each area home.
More from our neighbourhood series:
Employment lawyer Meriel Schindler of Withers Worldwide shares her tips on achieving equal pay
Do your homework
Make sure that you are being offered a fair salary. There is lots of industry data available, and you can always talk to people who have come out of the organisation. Where I see people coming a cropper is where they haven’t done their homework.
Don’t be afraid to negotiate
It’s quite standard to negotiate if you think an offer is on the low side. The job is unlikely to be withdrawn if you ask for money, and if that did happen I’d question whether you want to work for an employer who is so hypersensitive.
Know your worth
Women tend to be a bit more reticent to talk about their achievements. In my experience they need to have more confidence in their own abilities – men will big up what they’ve done to get a pay rise, and to compete women need to turn up the volume.
Work together
If you suspect men in your organisation are being paid more, look your boss in the eye and say, “I want you to assure me that I’m paid equivalent to my peers”. If you’re not getting a straight answer, talk to your peer group and consider taking direct action to fix inequality.
MATCH INFO
Uefa Champions League last 16, first leg
Liverpool v Bayern Munich, midnight, Wednesday, BeIN Sports
HAJJAN
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How to apply for a drone permit
- Individuals must register on UAE Drone app or website using their UAE Pass
- Add all their personal details, including name, nationality, passport number, Emiratis ID, email and phone number
- Upload the training certificate from a centre accredited by the GCAA
- Submit their request
What are the regulations?
- Fly it within visual line of sight
- Never over populated areas
- Ensure maximum flying height of 400 feet (122 metres) above ground level is not crossed
- Users must avoid flying over restricted areas listed on the UAE Drone app
- Only fly the drone during the day, and never at night
- Should have a live feed of the drone flight
- Drones must weigh 5 kg or less
Zodi%20%26%20Tehu%3A%20Princes%20Of%20The%20Desert
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The bio
Favourite book: Peter Rabbit. I used to read it to my three children and still read it myself. If I am feeling down it brings back good memories.
Best thing about your job: Getting to help people. My mum always told me never to pass up an opportunity to do a good deed.
Best part of life in the UAE: The weather. The constant sunshine is amazing and there is always something to do, you have so many options when it comes to how to spend your day.
Favourite holiday destination: Malaysia. I went there for my honeymoon and ended up volunteering to teach local children for a few hours each day. It is such a special place and I plan to retire there one day.
The biog
Name: Timothy Husband
Nationality: New Zealand
Education: Degree in zoology at The University of Sydney
Favourite book: Lemurs of Madagascar by Russell A Mittermeier
Favourite music: Billy Joel
Weekends and holidays: Talking about animals or visiting his farm in Australia
The%20specs
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The Sand Castle
Director: Matty Brown
Stars: Nadine Labaki, Ziad Bakri, Zain Al Rafeea, Riman Al Rafeea
Rating: 2.5/5
Meydan Racecourse racecard:
6.30pm: The Madjani Stakes Listed (PA) | Dh175,000 | 1,900m
7.05pm: Maiden for 2-year-old fillies (TB) | Dh165,000 | 1,400m
7.40pm: The Dubai Creek Mile Listed (TB) | Dh265,000 | 1,600m
8.15pm: Maiden for 2-year-old colts (TB) | Dh165,000 | 1,600m
8.50pm: The Entisar Listed (TB) | Dh265,000 | 2,000m
9.25pm: Handicap (TB) | Dh190,000 | 1,200m
10pm: Handicap (TB) | Dh190,000 | 1,600m.
Infiniti QX80 specs
Engine: twin-turbocharged 3.5-liter V6
Power: 450hp
Torque: 700Nm
Price: From Dh450,000, Autograph model from Dh510,000
Available: Now
