Business Point Today

Elon Musk will speak to Twitter Inc employees this week for the first time at a company-wide meeting since launching his $44 billion bid in April, a source said on Monday, citing an email from Twitter Chief Executive Parag Agrawal to staff. The meeting is scheduled for Thursday, and Musk will take questions directly from Twitter employees, the source added. Read More : https://english.alarabiya.net/News/world/2022/06/14/Elon-Musk-to-address-Twitter-employees-for-first-time-in-Town-Hall

 Starting Oman’s first online food delivery platform Akeed was not easy for its founders. Gaurav Nahar, Moosa Al Lawati and Darshan Puranik struggled with a number of issues from lack of funding to a shortage of workers at the time of its launch. “I remember I spoke to about 40 investors before I finally got one investor who believed in our vision and believed in the kind of value that we wanted to bring to the market,” Mr Nahar says, remembering the initial days of the company. The start-up also experienced staff shortages in the initial days as the founders worked to build it up. “Myself … Darshan all of our team members, used to even work as drivers because initially, we were short on drivers. We used to wait till evenings for some orders and do the deliveries.” “We also worked in all the other departments, like the call centre [to receive orders], marketing, developing everything … the setup initially.” Akeed — an Arabic word that means “sure” in English — overcame those challe...

 Egyptian smart infrastructure management start-up Pylon raised $19 million in a seed-funding round that will help it expand into new markets and improve its technology. The latest round, which is a mix of equity and debt, was led by Endure Capital that is supported by CDC Group, the UK government’s development finance institution. It also saw the participation of Cathexis Ventures, Khwarizmi Ventures, Loftyinc Ventures and various angel investors. Pylon, which offers smart grid infrastructure to utilities, will use the proceeds to expand into new emerging markets in South-East Asia, Africa and Latin America, the company said on Tuesday. With a $22 billion market opportunity, Pylon provides a “compelling model” for investors, said Ahmed Ashour, co-founder and chief executive of Pylon. “Our impact-driven vision of developing technology to better manage resources, eradicate inefficiencies and remove pain points in the utilities sector raised a call-to-action and many responded," Mr ...

 Elon Musk's huge Twitter investment took a new twist on Tuesday with the filing of a lawsuit alleging that the billionaire illegally delayed disclosing his stake in the social media company so he could buy more shares at lower prices. The complaint in New York federal court accuses Mr Musk of violating a regulatory deadline to reveal he had accumulated a stake of at least 5 per cent. Instead, according to the complaint, Mr Musk didn’t disclose his position in Twitter until he’d almost doubled his stake to more than 9 per cent. That strategy, the lawsuit alleges, hurt less wealthy investors who sold shares in the San Francisco company in the nearly two weeks before Mr Musk acknowledged holding a major stake.Mr Musk's regulatory filings show that he bought a little more than 620,000 shares at $36.83 apiece on January 31 and then continued to accumulate more shares on nearly every single trading day through April 1. Mr Musk, best known as chief executive of the electric vehicle m...

 Shares of Indonesia's biggest technology company GoTo, which is backed by Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, surged 23 per cent on the first day of trading after the company raised $1.1 billion in an initial public offering on the Indonesia Stock Exchange on Monday, making it the third-largest listing in Asia and the fifth largest in the world so far this year. The company's shares on listing rose to 416 rupiah ($0.029) compared with the 338 rupiah IPO price, and closed the day up 13 per cent at 382 rupiah.GoTo offered 46.7 billion Series A shares, comprising newly-issued and treasury shares for the purpose of over-allotment. It raised $954.7 million in proceeds and $146.3m from treasury shares, giving the company a market capitalisation of approximately $28bn, GoTo said in a statement. Around 300,000 investors participated in the IPO, with the company allocating more than $20m in shares to its driver-partners as part of its Gotong Royong Share Programmes. All full-time employees...

 JP Morgan Chase turned down a role to advise Russian search engine Yandex on a potential debt restructuring exercise after taking part in initial discussions with a group of the company’s bondholders. The decision comes as Yandex faces the risk that investors holding $1.25 billion of the company’s debt will demand to be repaid after a suspension in trading of its US-listed shares. The company does not have enough money to redeem the notes in full, it said last week. During initial discussions over the company’s financial situation, Yandex bondholders were told that JP Morgan and US law firm Latham & Watkins participated along with the Russian company, according to sources. “Following talks at the weekend, we decided not to be involved in this potential restructuring,” a spokesman for JP Morgan said on Wednesday in response to questions from Bloomberg. A Latham representative did not respond to requests for comment. On Wednesday, the firm published a statement condemning the wa...

 Most Middle East residents prefer online banking, a trend accelerated because of the digital transformation of banking and payment industries in the past few years, new research shows. Nearly 77 per cent of those surveyed in Saudi Arabia and 61 per cent in the UAE — the Arab world’s biggest economies — said they choose to do their banking online in some form, Minnesota technology company Entrust said in a recent survey. Almost 60 per cent of respondents in the two countries said they prefer using the bank’s app, while 29 per cent liked using the desktop web browser. Entrust surveyed 1,350 consumers in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, the US, Canada, the UK, Germany, Singapore, Australia and Indonesia who have made or received digital payments in the past 12 months. “This study highlights how, more than ever, consumer banking is about digital interactions first, and that they [banks] must create that digital experience with security at its foundation,” said Jenn Markey, vice president of pro...