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A Kuwaiti sheikh is suing UBS AG ( id="symbol_UBSN.VX_0"> UBSN.VX ) for $21.4 million, alleging the Swiss bank failed to pay him for helping it become lead arranger on a $9 billion asset sale by the Kuwaiti telecommunications operator Zain, a Dubai court heard on Sunday. The case highlights the complexity of doing business in the Gulf, where personal connections to high-ranking officials or executives are often valued in deal-making.   Sheikh Meshal Jarah al-Sabah, a member of Kuwait's ruling family, says UBS recruited him with a verbal contract in July 2009 to help scupper the French media conglomerate Vivendi's ( id="symbol_VIV.PA_1"> VIV.PA ) bid to acquire Zain's ( id="symbol_ZAIN.KW_2"> ZAIN.KW ) operations in about 15 African countries. UBS denies the allegation. Vivendi called off the talks later that month. India's Bharti Airtel ( id="symbol_BRTI.NS_3"> BRTI.NS ) subsequently bought Zain's African asse

Indian tycoon Mukesh Ambani hopes his multi-billion dollar bet on cheap high-speed wireless broadband could change the way nearly a billion of his countrymen use mobile devices from the way they do banking to watching cricket. In a country where most people own a mobile phone yet lack basic Internet access, it is a risky gamble even for India's richest man. He is counting on an unproven strategy and still-developing technology in a market with very little pricing power. Three years ago energy conglomerate Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) ( id="symbol_RELI.NS_0"> RELI.NS ) won an exclusive nationwide licence to roll out 4G across India, giving it a foothold to tap a potentially lucrative market in phones, tablets, computers and television. The data-focused service could start to roll-out in New Delhi and Mumbai by the end of the year, sources familiar with the matter, who asked not be named, told Reuters. Eventually, the plan is to run it across hundreds of cities. Am

In a country synonymous with larger-than-life mining tycoons and Outback heroes, the geeks are quietly inheriting the earth. As coal magnate Nathan Tinkler, the poster boy for Australia's fading 10-year minerals boom, publicly battles against bankruptcy, software entrepreneurs Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar are riding high.   The former college buddies behind fast-growing software firm Atlassian unceremoniously bumped Tinkler off the top of Australia's "young rich list", leading a charge in the country's blooming technology industries. The tech start-up and biotech sectors are at the forefront of a push to transform Australia from an exporter of iron ore to an exporter of ideas. "It's a pretty primitive economy," said internet entrepreneur Matt Barrie. "We basically dig stuff up out of the ground, put it on a boat and ship it." As part of ambitious plans to change that, the government has announced millions of dollars in new

British finance minister George Osborne completed talks on Sunday with government departments aimed at securing spending cuts worth 11.5 billion pounds ($17.70 billion)in 2015-16 to help reduce the country's budget deficit, the Treasury said. The finance ministry said it had reached agreement with all departments, three days before Osborne is due to publish details of their spending limits on June 26.   The talks to find spending cuts starting in 2015 - when voters go to the polls - posed a political headache for Osborne, particularly over the sensitive defense budget and a business department under pressure to do more to revive the economy. Osborne, who announced the end of the talks on Twitter, will now seek to persuade voters that he has a credible plan to build on recent signs that the economy is gaining strength after two years of stagnation. He is expected to give more details on Wednesday of billions of pounds of infrastructure spending designed to bolster the recover

A jump in tensions with North Korea has fed a tenfold surge in overseas commercial property spending by investors south of one of the world's most heavily armed borders, making South Korea the largest property investor so far in 2013. South Korean investors bought about $5 billion in the first five months, a huge increase on the first half of 2012, real estate consultant Jones Lang LaSalle ( id="symbol_JLL.N_0"> JLL.N ) said.   "This allocation to commercial property over such a short period of time is unprecedented for the South Koreans," JLL said. "Tensions with the North Koreans have certainly aided the capital flight." Its global buying spree, which puts it ahead of Canada and Singapore, is due to reach $10 billion this year, JLL said. Tensions on the peninsula reached their peak in February when North Korea threatened nuclear and missile strikes against South Korea and the United States after U.N.-imposed sanctions for a nuclear weapons

Australian gaming firm Echo Entertainment ( id="symbol_EGP.AX_0"> EGP.AX ) has submitted plans for a $1 billion expansion of its Star casino in Sydney, including an option that would allow rival Crown Ltd ( id="symbol_CWN.AX CWN.AX ) to open a VIP-only casino. _0"> Echo, which holds the sole licence to operate a casino in Sydney until 2019, has been lobbying to extend this right in an attempt to block Crown's plans to add to its Melbourne casino.   _1"> Crown, controlled by billionaire James Packer, has said it wants to open a VIP casino in Sydney as part of a A$1 billion six-star hotel and residential waterfront development, boosting its share of the lucrative Asian gambling market. The New South Wales government has said it will approve only one project, meaning either Crown builds a second casino or Echo expands is business and remains the sole gambling operator. Echo said in a statement it would invest more than A$1.1 billion ($1.0 billio

U.S. banks have given a proposal to federal regulators on how to pay for restructuring the country's too-big-to-fail institutions in the event of a future crisis, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the conversations. _0"> The Journal said the proposal, given to the U.S. Federal Reserve at a private meeting on May 22, is an effort by banks to pre-empt tougher rules from officials, who believe banks still could pose a threat to financial stability in a crisis.   According to the plan, the largest financial services holding companies would maintain a certain amount of debt and equity that would be used to prop up any failed bank subsidiary seized by regulators. Some banks might even be forced to issue expensive long-term debt, according to the newspaper. In the presentation, the banks said they each would agree to hold combined debt and equity equal to 14 percent of their risk-weighted assets, the Journal said. For the six biggest U.S. banks t

The overall liquidity in China's financial system is at a reasonable level, the central bank said on Monday, adding that it has asked commercial banks to improve the ways they manage liquidity. _0"> The comments from the People's Bank of China came as interest rates for short-term funds in China spiked to extraordinary levels last week after big commercial banks held back on lending in the interbank market. Rates remained elevated on Monday, but off recent highs. The comments were issued in a notice dated June 17 but released on Monday. (Reporting by Koh Gui Qing; editing by Jonathan Standing)

Like many visitors to the Casino Royale Goa on a rainy Saturday night on India's western coast, Salim Budhwani said he does not gamble but also had no objection to the betting at the busy tables downstairs. Despite socially conservative India's ambivalence about gambling, consultancy firm KPMG estimated that $60 billion was wagered in the country in 2010. Much of the gambling is illegal, but attitudes are slowly changing as more Asian countries embrace gaming as a revenue generator and tourist draw.   Legal gambling in the increasingly wealthy country of 1.2 billion is limited to state lotteries, horse races and a handful of casinos. Most gambling in India, from penny-stake games at street corners and card parties in affluent homes to wagers on cricket and underground numbers games, is illicit and goes untaxed. "People are playing on the roadside everywhere. People are playing in their houses," said Budhwani, 33, a luggage retailer from the city of Hyderabad who

Chinese companies are getting more creative in the business of money lending as they struggle to keep profits ticking over in a cooling economy, raising concerns they are adding to the mountain of debt risks building in the world's No.2 economy. _0"> Big state companies in industries struggling with over-capacity but with easy access to credit are borrowing funds, not to invest in their business but to lend to smaller firms sometimes at several times the official interest rate, part of an informal lending market in China that authorities are taking aim at. China's central bank increased pressure on banks to rein in such informal lending and speculative trading last week in money markets, letting short-term interest rates spike to extraordinary levels. In the $3.7 trillion so-called shadow banking market, the fastest growing area is in so-called entrusted loans, which are arranged by banks on the companies' behalf, and in bankers' acceptance notes, tradable

Through the dark days of the financial crisis, and the grey days of the halting recovery that have followed, investors have always been able to count on backing from two sources - Ben Bernanke and Beijing. They have provided stimulus, mainly by pumping funds into the U.S. and Chinese economies in various ways, when other pillars of support had become unreliable.   That helps to explain why global financial markets took such a beating last week when both signaled that they are getting tired of being leant on so heavily. Bernanke, the chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, set a timetable at last week's Fed meeting for the central bank to reduce the size of its bond buying program with a view to ending it by the middle of next year. Meanwhile, his counterparts at the People's Bank of China (PBOC) engineered a cash crunch as a warning to overextended banks - and this from a central bank that has previously always provided liquidity when cash conditions tightened. A lot will

Rio Tinto Ltd ( id="symbol_RIO.AX_0"> RIO.AX ) has scrapped the proposed sale of its $1.3 billion diamonds business, a setback for its plan to sell a swag of mines and company stakes to tighten operations during a global industry downturn. The world no.3 miner has at least half a dozen assets on the block, aiming to pare $19 billion in net debt, cut costs and boost returns to shareholders, but buyers are unwilling to pay up in face of volatile commodity prices and rising debt costs.   "In resource land it's just a little bit tough at the moment," said Paul Xiradis, chief executive of Ausbil Dexia, which owns Rio Tinto shares. "The market would have preferred for Rio to sell (diamonds)....But if you're not going to achieve the right price, there's no point in cutting off your nose to spite your face just to achieve an end." Rio is not alone in struggling to sell assets. Barrick Gold ( id="symbol_ABX.TO_1"> ABX.TO ) was unab

In a country synonymous with larger-than-life mining tycoons and Outback heroes, the geeks are quietly inheriting the earth. As coal magnate Nathan Tinkler, the poster boy for Australia's fading 10-year minerals boom, publicly battles against bankruptcy, software entrepreneurs Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar are riding high. The former college buddies behind fast-growing software firm Atlassian unceremoniously bumped Tinkler off the top of Australia's "young rich list", leading a charge in the country's blooming technology industries.   The tech start-up and biotech sectors are at the forefront of a push to transform Australia from an exporter of iron ore to an exporter of ideas. "It's a pretty primitive economy," said internet entrepreneur Matt Barrie. "We basically dig stuff up out of the ground, put it on a boat and ship it." As part of ambitious plans to change that, the government has announced millions of dollars in new

Freeport McMoRan Copper and Gold Inc ( id="symbol_FCX.N_0"> FCX.N ) was ramping up production at its Indonesian unit on Monday, a company spokeswoman said, six weeks after a deadly tunnel collapse at the world's No.2 copper mine halted operations. Trade union workers at the Grasberg mine in remote West Papua were also returning to production work, while postponed pay talks with the Arizona-based firm have been resumed, a union official added. Freeport Indonesia employs about 24,000 workers, of which three-quarters belong to the union. Freeport stopped production at Grasberg on May 15, a day after a training area in a tunnel caved in, killing 28 people. Planned pay talks were also put on hold last month. On Saturday, the company said it had slowly resumed open-pit mining after receiving approval from the Indonesian government, although underground production remained closed.   "We herewith confirm that we have started to ramp up production since Saturday,&qu

China's cash crunch eased further on Monday after the central bank moved to prevent the money market from seizing up, but bank stocks tanked as the authorities made clear that the days of unlimited cheap official funds are over. Chinese shares suffered their biggest daily loss in nearly four years, with financial stocks dropping more than 7 percent after the People's Bank of China (PBOC) said banks needed to do a better job of managing their cash and lending.   Money market rates had soared last week when the central bank, relied on as a source of cheap cash used to finance China's vast "shadow banking" system, stood pat, letting a sharp drop in fund inflows into China and cash hoarding by some banks do the rest. The sudden tightening of cash markets, which saw some banks paying a 25 percent interest rate for cash, fanned fears that Beijing's latest attempt to steer the world's second-biggest economy to more balanced growth less reliant on credit-dr

The U.S. central bank's plans to scale back its stimulus and fears Chinese policy may be tightening sent the dollar sharply higher on Monday, while world shares extended last week's dismal performance. The sell-off in stocks, bonds and commodities since the Federal Reserve signaled an end to the era of cheap money that has fuelled record rises in asset prices is seen having further to run. "The prospect for a disorderly transition is there," said Josh Raymond, market strategist for City Index. Fears of further market turmoil have been exacerbated by worries over China's growth outlook and the health of its banks after the country's central bank said liquidity in its financial system is "reasonable", despite high short term rates. Amid the selling, yields on 10-year U.S. Treasury notes, a benchmark for global rates, hit a two-year high of 2.57 percent on Monday, supporting the dollar which added 0.4 percent against a basket major currencies to

Japan's Suntory Beverage and Food Ltd will raise 388 billion yen ($4 billion) after it set its IPO price near the bottom of its marketing range, hurt by concerns about its valuation and weak appetite amid market volatility. The food and soft drinks unit of Suntory Holdings Ltd set the price of its initial public offering at 3,100 yen per share, compared with its 3,000-3,800 yen indicative range, it said in a regulatory filing on Monday.   The maker of Boss canned coffee had been seeking as much as 470 billion yen in Asia's biggest IPO so far this year, to bolster its war chest for acquisitions in emerging markets like Southeast Asia and boost its competitiveness against rivals like Kirin Holdings Co Ltd ( id="symbol_2503.T_0"> 2503.T ). "It's obviously a sign that the stock is not popular among institutional investors," said a hedge fund manager based in Singapore, who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. "Given its valuation

Vodafone ( id="symbol_VOD.L_0"> VOD.L ) has agreed to buy Germany's largest cable operator Kabel Deutschland ( id="symbol_KD8Gn.DE KD8Gn.DE ) for 7.7 billion euros ($10 billion), betting on TV and fixed-line services in its biggest deal since 2007. _1"> Announcing its second major acquisition for a European fixed-line network in 12 months, Vodafone said it would pay 87 euros ($110) per share for the group to enable it to offer more competitive packages with TV, fixed-line and broadband services to its mobile customers. The world's second-largest mobile operator, following up its acquisition of Cable & Wireless Worldwide, is however paying a rich price for the German firm and its 8.5 million homes, which it considered buying before it went public in March 2010 at 22 euros per share. One trader who asked not to be named said the offer, Vodafone's biggest since a 2007 Indian acquisition, valued Kabel Deutschland at 12 times enterprise value a