$2.7bn
Whichever way you look at it, Ethiopian airlines which was established in 1945 breaking records in the air and on the ground. Revenues ($2.7bn) and profitability ($233m) are looking up with passenger numbers topping 9 million last year. Now, the state owned airline hopes to raise its fleet numbers to 150 planes by 2025 with plans for additional 13 Boeing 787 jets and six more Airbus A350 planes.
$150,000
One of China’s biggest state-owned banks is asking its wealthy clients to pay $150,000 for a ticket to attend a Republican party fundraiser in the US and meet President Donald Trump, according to an invitation seen by the Financial Times. The invite from the private banking unit of China Construction Bank, the country’s second-largest state-owned lender, offered participants the chance to take photos with Mr Trump and mingle with US political and business figures. It also said that representatives from ZTE Group, the Chinese telecom company that is facing crippling US sanctions, would attend the event, to be held in Dallas.
25.5%
Argentina severed ties with the International Monetary Fund 12 years ago, swearing never to go back again — which is why President Mauricio Macri’s decision to seek a new loan from the fund shocked his nation. Faced with a run on Argentina’s currency and inflation running at 25.5%, Mr Macri alighted on the move as a forceful — if controversial — answer to investors losing confidence in his plan to bring back order gradually to Argentina’s economy. What are the difficulties he is trying to address? A three-week rout of Argentina’s peso has wiped out about a fifth of its value against the dollar, making it the worst performing emerging market currency this year.
$1.3bn
Blackstone, the world’s largest buyout group, has agreed to sell its remaining 5.8 per cent stake in Hilton Worldwide, bringing to an end 11 years of ownership that proved one of the most profitable private equity transactions. The hotel chain’s largest shareholder will sell 15.8m shares, according to a statement by Hilton on Friday. The total value of the shares is estimated at roughly $1.3bn, based on Hilton’s closing price of $83.30 on Thursday. Blackstone took Hilton private in October 2007 led by Jon Gray, its star dealmaker who was recently promoted president of the firm, in a transaction worth $26bn.
$15bn
Anadarko Petroleum is seeking to raise a record $14-$15 billion from banks and export credit agencies for its huge liquefied natural gas (LNG) project in Mozambique. Fast-growing gas demand from China and Southeast Asia is reassuring export project developers sitting on huge untapped gas discoveries in Mozambique and elsewhere that the market cycle is turning after three years of low prices. The full amount would be the largest loan ever in the LNG sector. French bank Societe Generale, the financial adviser on the $20 billion Mozambique LNG project, has already received interest for a combined $12 billion in cover and direct lending from export credit agencies (ECAs) in China, South Africa, Italy and Japan, one of the sources said.
