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Study opens up potential to tackle a condition with few available treatment options

Novo Nordisk is trialling its weight-loss drugs to explore if they can reduce alcohol intake and treat alcoholic liver disease, as it seeks to expand the uses of the blockbuster treatments.

The Danish pharmaceutical company has started recruitment for a mid-stage trial looking at whether an estimated 240 patients using semaglutide, the active ingredient in Wegovy, and cagrilintide, an ingredient in another Novo Nordisk drug in development for weight loss, can treat liver damage and reduce alcohol use in participants with alcoholic liver disease.

Novo Nordisk is already assessing semaglutide’s effects in liver disease linked to obesity — metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis — but this is the first study to assess the effectiveness of the new generation of weight-loss treatments on alcoholic liver disease, which kills more than 30,000 Americans a year.

The phase-two trial, set to finish in June 2025, opens up the possibility of offering a treatment for a disease with few other options. Treatments for alcoholic liver disease have remained largely unchanged for the past four decades, and rely heavily on abstinence combined with nutrition therapy and steroids. The trial, which was first reported by Bloomberg, was posted on the Clinicaltrials.gov database earlier this week.

The drug has shown health benefits beyond weight loss. A trial in November showed that it could reduce the risk of death in patient with cardiovascular disease by 18 per cent.

New analysis of this data on Tuesday showed users of the drug could sustain weight loss over four years and gain cardiovascular benefits regardless of their weight. Novo Nordisk is also exploring the benefits of semaglutide in Alzheimer’s disease.

The company is relying on expanding the use cases for its drug to convince health systems to adopt them more broadly. In the US, the Food and Drug Administration approved Wegovy for use to lower the risk of heart disease in March, enabling it to be covered by Medicare Part D plans, which provide coverage for more than 50mn American.

However, health systems in Europe are struggling to afford the high costs of the drug. The UK has limited its use to two years, and Denmark, where Novo Nordisk is headquartered, only provides the drug privately.

Novo Nordisk declined to comment.

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US Pharma and Bio

Iran open to ‘serious dialogue’, says UN nuclear chief

Fraught relations with Tehran, which faces sanctions over its atomic programme, appear to be easing

Iran has shown a willingness to engage in “serious dialogue” with the UN’s nuclear watchdog for the first time in more than a year, according to the agency’s head, in a sign Tehran is seeking to ease tensions with the US.

Rafael Grossi, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told the Financial Times that Tehran and the watchdog, which have endured fraught relations for months, could be entering a “different phase” after he held talks in Iran.

Tehran appears willing to discuss “concrete” issues, he said.

The apparent shift in tone was prompted by an invitation from Iran’s nuclear chief Mohammad Eslami for Grossi to attend talks in the Islamic republic. The call came in mid-April at a time of heightened tensions between Iran, Israel and the US.

Around that time, Iranian officials issued veiled threats that Tehran could change policy and seek to weaponise its expansive nuclear programme.

But after meeting Eslami and other senior officials last week on his first trip to Iran since March 2023, Grossi said he sensed an opportunity to resolve some points of contention, including improving the IAEA’s ability to monitor the republic’s nuclear activities.

“I see in them a recognition that it is better to have some engagement than to continue on a completely divergent course, leading to more escalation and perhaps even more danger, including war,” Grossi said. “It’s very important because we reconnected after many months of talking past each other.”

He added that Washington and Tehran also continued to keep open a “bilateral channel”. The FT revealed that senior US and Iranian officials held secret indirect talks in Oman in January as both sides sought to prevent the Israel-Hamas war from exploding into a full-blown regional conflict.

Long-running hostilities between Israel and Iran reached a peak in April after Iran fired more than 300 missiles and drones at the Jewish state in retaliation for an Israeli strike on the republic’s consulate in Damascus. It was the first direct Iranian strike on Israel launched from the republic. Israel responded by firing drones and missiles at an air base near the Iranian city of Isfahan, which is close to the Natanz nuclear site.

The tit-for-tat strikes were considered calibrated to avoid an all-out war and caused limited damage. But analysts expressed concerns that Iran could expand its nuclear programme — which is already enriching uranium close to weapons grade — to use as leverage with the US and as a warning to its enemies.

Grossi said Iran had not altered the scale or pace of its nuclear activity since Hamas’s October 7 attack and Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza sparked hostilities across the Middle East.

He added that there was “no evidence to suggest that Iran has moved, or is moving, or is planning to move, to a weapons programme”.

Iran has been enriching uranium up to 60 per cent purity, close to weapons grade, for more than two years. It is part of Tehran’s response to former US President Donald Trump’s decision to unilaterally abandon the 2015 nuclear accord Tehran signed with world powers.

Grossi said Tehran now has sufficient fissile material to produce about three nuclear bombs within a matter of weeks, if it chose to do so. Tehran insists its programme is for civilian purposes only.

“There have been oscillations in the production of 60 per cent [enriched uranium], but nothing dramatic,” Grossi said. “What we see is there is a steady base. They have been faster in the past, but what we see is a regular [pace] — it’s like a jog.”

But “the programme is growing, it’s getting bigger, it’s getting wider, it’s getting stronger — no doubt”.

Grossi said technical talks between the IAEA and Iranian officials had continued since his return from the republic. Tehran made no commitments to the IAEA during Grossi’s trip, but both parties discussed issues that have caused friction between them.

The watchdog is hoping to use the talks to convince Tehran to reinstall agency cameras at nuclear facilities, allow its inspectors access to plants used to manufacture parts for centrifuges, and to visit facilities linked to a long-running IAEA probe into past nuclear activity at three undeclared sites.

However, Iran has previously made agreements with the agency only to renege on its obligations as the IAEA’s ability to work in the republic has been restricted since Trump pulled out of the nuclear accord in 2018 and imposed waves of crippling sanctions on the republic.

In March last year, Tehran pledged to reinstall about 30 IAEA cameras at its nuclear facilities, but only nine were made operational, Grossi said.

The regime has also previously appeared to make compromises before IAEA board of governors’ meetings, which western nations can use to censure the republic. The next governors meeting is on June 3.

But Grossi said what was important was ensuring there was no “complete disengagement” or “rupture”.

“This is what we are trying to do is keep things contained, and [to have] levels of visibility that are useful and meaningful,” Grossi said.

Just 16 of the aircraft shipped to customers last month as company improves manufacturing processes

Boeing has made the fewest deliveries of its 737 Max since last year, as quality problems at the plane maker force a slowdown in production.

Just 16 Maxes were delivered to airlines and lessors last month, the company said on Tuesday, dropping from 24 in March and the fewest since last September. Boeing made 24 deliveries overall.

The decline comes as Boeing reels from an accident in January, when a door panel blew out from a 737 Max operated by Alaska Airlines shortly after take-off. While no passengers were seriously injured, it sparked multiple investigations by US authorities.

Since January, Boeing has had “quality stand-downs” at more than 20 sites in the US, UK and Australia, including its 737 Max factory in Renton, Washington. The events involve halting production to focus on improving safety and quality. Chief executive Dave Calhoun told investors last month it was working to improve processes including training and inspections.

Boeing is also no longer accepting 737 Max fuselages that do not meet specifications from its supplier Spirit AeroSystems. The goal is to eliminate “travelled work”, where jets move through the production line with problems addressed later in the assembly process.

Quality problems also led to the slowdown in 737 Max deliveries last September, when only 15 were received by customers after Spirit had incorrectly drilled holes in the rear pressure bulkhead for some fuselages.

Deliveries are important to the amount of cash that Boeing takes in, since customers pay the bulk of the price when they receive their planes. Boeing reported that it used $3.9bn in free cash during the first quarter, compared with the use of less than $800mn a year earlier.

The low number of Max deliveries in April will be one of the factors contributing to what chief financial officer Brian West has said will be “another sizeable use of cash” in the second quarter.

After the Alaska Airlines accident, a preliminary investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board found the four bolts meant to secure the panel to the fuselage were missing.

The US Federal Aviation Administration has also launched investigations and found “multiple instances” where Boeing and Spirit failed to meet manufacturing and quality requirements. The US Department of Justice is investigating whether Boeing met standards laid out in a $2.5bn agreement to defer criminal prosecution for misleading regulators in relation to a design flaw that led to two fatal crashes of the 737 Max in 2018 and 2019.

Deliveries of the 737 Max have fluctuated since the FAA lifted the grounding on the jet in November 2020, from a low of four in April 2021 to a high of 54 in December 2022.

Anglo American’s plan to sell off assets and strengthen its balance sheet would likely make it an even more attractive acquisition

Mining is about splitting things apart to isolate the valuable bits. So is a big part of mining giant BHP’s BHP 2.45%increase; green up pointing triangle proposed takeover of Anglo American AAL -3.49%decrease; red down pointing triangle.

On Tuesday, Anglo outlined its plan to remain a stand-alone business, having rejected a second potential offer valued at roughly $43 billion from BHP on Monday. Anglo wants to keep the copper mines that its Australian suitor covets, its cash-generative iron-ore operations and its British nutrient-mining startup, which is probably too speculative to sell at a sensible price. Everything else is on the block: De Beers diamonds, platinum, steelmaking coal and nickel.

The new strategy, which has been in the works for months, isn’t all that different from what BHP proposed. The Australian miner wants Anglo to demerge its South African iron-ore business Kumba, which is listed in Johannesburg, whereas Anglo would keep it. Conversely, BHP would keep Anglo’s steelmaking coal to combine with its own, alongside the merger of the two companies’ copper and other iron-ore assets. But both plans would break up the old Anglo conglomerate.

This outcome is a clear win for investors. The company has long traded at a discount to other big mining companies because of its conglomerate structure, with a confusion of different commodities, two listed companies and even a luxury brand in De Beers all under one roof. Over the 10 years before BHP’s takeover approach, Anglo’s enterprise value as a multiple of earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization was on average 21% lower than those of BHP, Rio Tinto and Glencore.

With Anglo’s shares up 25% since BHP’s initial proposal, that discount has turned into a 5% premium. But the stock might not fall much even if BHP backs away, given the alternative of a breakup. In a note published Monday, brokerage RBC estimated that the sum of Anglo’s parts could be worth $48.6 billion if the conglomerate carried out BHP’s divestment plan on its own—13% more than BHP’s latest bid proposal.

Crucially, a breakup would also free up Anglo’s debt-heavy balance sheet for much-needed investment to boost copper output. At a Bank of America conference in Miami on Tuesday, BHP Chief Executive Mike Henry made much of his company’s superior financial strength. But if Anglo sells assets to pay down debt, this is no killer argument for a deal.

So what additional value would merging with BHP bring to the table? The question hinges on the synergies available through combining mining operations—the cost savings possible through combined marketing, joint procurement and so forth. With its deal still at the informal “proposal” stage under Britain’s arcane takeover rules, BHP hasn’t publicly quantified these.

Whether BHP goes hostile with an improved, formal offer before a deadline of May 22 imposed by the U.K. takeover code will likely depend on its estimate of these synergies, set against the risks that its deal gets bogged down in antitrust probes and the politics of South Africa, where Anglo was founded 107 years ago and remains deeply embedded. This is also what investors should focus on if they are presented with a clear choice next week.

BHP might conclude that it is worth biding its time. Anglo’s own breakup plan will throw up assets to buy, such as the steelmaking coal business the South African company no longer wants but BHP would keep. And a slimmer Anglo, which would emerge toward the end of next year under the company’s own strategy, would also make an easier target for BHP to take another swing at. Even if it loses this battle, BHP needn’t give up on the war.

« Dubai Unlocked » | Une fuite de données révèle que des dizaines de criminels, fugitifs et « kleptocrates » ont placé dans l’immobilier du petit émirat leurs millions d’origine douteuse, grâce à la complaisance des autorités locales.

Au trente-septième étage du Burj Khalifa, la plus haute tour du monde, Dzenis Kadric loue au prix fort un appartement haut de gamme avec une vue imprenable sur Dubaï. Le propriétaire ne le sait probablement pas, mais son locataire, un ancien policier serbe, est membre d’un cartel dont le leader est considéré par les autorités américaines comme « l’un des trafiquants de drogue les plus actifs au monde ». Le narcotrafiquant ne le sait sans doute pas non plus, mais son bailleur est lui aussi visé par la justice. Candido Nsue Okomo, l’ex-directeur de la société pétrolière nationale de Guinée équatoriale, devenu par la suite ministre des sports, est mis en examen pour détournement de fonds et pour blanchiment par la justice espagnole. Cette situation surprenante est emblématique du Dubaï d’aujourd’hui, où se croisent criminels condamnés, fugitifs, personnalités politiquement exposées et oligarques placés sous sanctions.

Jusqu’au milieu des années 1990, pourtant, la ville de 35 kilomètres carrés n’était que dunes sablonneuses. Il n’a fallu que quelques décennies pour qu’elle se mue en métropole démesurée. Une transformation tous azimuts, portée par la stabilité d’un régime monarchique rigide, une situation géographique au carrefour des continents et par la volonté de trouver des relais de croissance au pétrole, qui finira inéluctablement par s’épuiser.

L’émirat établit alors des zones franches à la fiscalité très avantageuse, investit massivement dans des infrastructures ultramodernes et joue pleinement la carte du tourisme. Il instaure des lois qui permettent aux étrangers de détenir facilement de l’immobilier. Ces conditions économiques et fiscales attirent les capitaux du monde entier. Le secteur de la construction suit le mouvement.

Mais derrière les façades rutilantes de la ville se dissimule une réalité moins avouable, dévoilée par une nouvelle fuite de données baptisée « Dubai Unlocked ». Ces informations cadastrales confidentielles détaillent comment l’immobilier émirati sert de refuge à certains des criminels les plus recherchés et les plus insaisissables de la planète, qui profitent de la bienveillance des autorités à l’égard de l’argent sale qui se déverse du monde entier – ou, tout au moins, de leur négligence.

Un patrimoine inconnu de la justice

Certains des noms révélés par le leak mènent directement aux plus hautes sphères du narcotrafic. Un trafiquant marseillais de premier plan s’est ainsi offert, en 2021, pas moins de dix-huit appartements dans deux tours du centre huppé de Dubaï, déboursant plus de 10 millions d’euros en quelques semaines. Ce patrimoine est inconnu de la justice française, qui a récemment condamné l’homme en question à de la prison pour trafic de stupéfiants. L’enquête judiciaire n’a pas permis d’établir l’existence d’actifs immobiliers aux Emirats financés par l’argent de la drogue, malgré de forts soupçons. Les enquêteurs français avaient pourtant sollicité leurs homologues dubaïotes pour obtenir des informations sur le volet financier. En vain.

Ailleurs, on retrouve pêle-mêle des Pakistanais accusés d’avoir blanchi des milliards de dollars pour le compte de trafiquants de drogues, un trafiquant néerlandais présent sur la liste des fugitifs les plus recherchés d’Europe, un parrain de la mafia suédoise, un ex-cadre de Siemens mouillé dans un scandale de corruption au Nigéria, plusieurs acteurs de l’escroquerie pyramidale à la cryptomonnaie « OneCoin », ou encore Alexei Oleksin, un oligarque sous sanctions européennes, soupçonné d’être le portefeuille du dictateur biélorusse, Alexandre Loukachenko. La découverte de dizaines de personnalités proches d’autocrates africains place par ailleurs Dubaï au centre d’un nouveau chapitre de la saga des « biens mal acquis ».

L’incohérence des procédures d’entraide internationale

« Les responsables de la corruption et les personnes politiquement exposées qui refusent de rendre des comptes au public utilisent des juridictions secrètes telles que les Emirats arabes unis pour dissimuler des actifs au vu et au su de tout le monde », résume Maria Giuditta Borselli, cheffe de projet pour C4ADS, le think-tank américain à l’origine de la fuite de données.

Pour ceux que les sanctions internationales empêchent de voyager en Occident, ou ceux qui cherchent à échapper aux forces de l’ordre, la ville possède de nombreux avantages. Premier d’entre eux : l’incohérence des procédures pour aider les autorités étrangères à arrêter et extrader les fugitifs. Les Emirats arabes unis (EAU) ont certes signé, en quelques années, plus de quarante traités d’extradition. Mais plusieurs fugitifs de premier plan profitent toujours au grand jour du luxe de la ville, à l’image de la milliardaire angolaise Isabel Dos Santos, qui continue de tenir la chronique de sa vie dubaïote sur Instagram malgré la notice rouge d’Interpol qui la vise depuis 2022. Le sentiment d’impunité est tel que de nombreux criminels ne prennent même pas la peine de dissimuler leurs achats derrière des sociétés-écrans ou des hommes de paille, comme c’est souvent le cas ailleurs.

Dans un rapport rédigé en 2021 dans le cadre d’une vaste enquête européenne sur la criminalité organisée, la police judiciaire d’Anvers (Belgique) relevait que Dubaï était devenue en quelques années « un refuge pour les criminels ». « C’est un endroit où les gens peuvent séjourner librement, dépenser des ressources financières obtenues illégalement et coordonner des activités criminelles », constataient les policiers, soulignant les « résultats plutôt médiocres » des Emiratis « en matière de coopération policière et judiciaire internationale ».

La non-extradition d’Atul et de Rajesh Gupta est, de ce point de vue, éloquente. Accusés d’avoir pillé les caisses publiques de l’Afrique du Sud, poursuivis pour fraude, ces deux frères proches de l’ancien président sud-africain Jacob Zuma ont échappé à l’extradition vers Pretoria, malgré l’existence d’un traité de coopération entre les deux pays. Les Emirats ont discrètement rejeté la demande en 2023, au grand dam de l’Afrique du Sud, dont les autorités ont déclaré ne pas avoir reçu de « réponses satisfaisantes » sur le sujet.

« Les accords d’extradition ne sont pas nécessairement déterminants pour extrader une personne, décrypte l’avocate Radha Stirling, fondatrice de l’association « Detained in Dubaï » (Détenus à Dubaï). Ce qui compte, c’est ce que Dubaï peut obtenir en retour. » La police de Dubaï se défend en mettant en avant les récentes arrestations résultant de notices rouges d’Interpol, et assure s’employer à « renforcer les ressources pour répondre aux attentes » de ses homologues étrangers.

Des achats en cash ou en bitcoin

Dubaï présente aussi un autre attrait pour le blanchiment de l’argent de la drogue ou de la corruption : la présence sur place de nombreux intermédiaires financiers, au premier rang desquels les agents immobiliers, qui ont la réputation de ne poser de questions ni sur l’acheteur ni sur l’origine de ses fonds. En mars, lors d’un rendez-vous en caméra cachée avec un gestionnaire immobilier à Dubaï, des journalistes de la télévision suédoise (SVT) ont été informés qu’ils pouvaient payer en « sacs de billets » ou en cryptomonnaies pour acheter un appartement, et qu’il n’y aurait « aucune question » à propos d’un tel financement. « Quiconque veut acheter peut acheter », a assuré l’agent immobilier. Certains sites de courtiers immobiliers disent accepter « tous types de paiement », y compris le « cash » et les « bitcoins ».

Malgré les nouvelles règles antiblanchiment imposées aux agents immobiliers depuis 2019, il reste « des avocats, des banquiers et des professionnels de l’immobilier qui font fi des exigences internationales en matière de déclaration des transactions suspectes », estime John Christensen, cofondateur de l’ONG spécialisée Tax Justice Network. Ce que confirme en creux le nombre très faible de déclarations de soupçon adressées aux services de renseignement financier de l’émirat – à peine 612 entre 2020 et 2023 –, alors que les transactions immobilières se comptent en centaines de milliers.

Maintien sur liste grise

Contactées par Le Monde et ses partenaires, les autorités émiraties ont répondu de manière laconique. Estimant prendre « très au sérieux [leur] rôle dans la protection de l’intégrité du système financier mondial », les Emirats assurent travailler « en étroite collaboration avec leurs partenaires internationaux pour perturber et décourager toutes les formes de financement illicite ».

En 2022, les lacunes de la lutte antiblanchiment ont pourtant conduit le Groupe d’action financière sur le blanchiment de capitaux (GAFI) à placer le pays sur sa liste « grise » des pays à risque de blanchiment sous surveillance renforcée. Les autorités émiraties se sont alors empressées de renforcer leur réglementation – au moins sur le papier. Après un intense lobbying, le pays a réussi à sortir du « purgatoire » après seulement un an. Un succès décisif, qui a poussé la Commission européenne à engager, dans la foulée, le retrait des EAU de sa liste « grise ».

C’était sans compter sur le Parlement européen qui, dans une démarche inédite, a opposé le 23 avril son véto à cette décision. Doutant des « progrès significatifs » qu’auraient accomplis les Emirats, les eurodéputés ont appelé à une évaluation « rigoureuse et impartiale » du centre financier émirati, qui demeure « l’un des plus grands fournisseurs d’opacité financière au monde ». Ce que vient une nouvelle fois confirmer l’enquête « Dubai Unlocked ».

New bundle, called StreamSaver, to be available exclusively to subscribers of Comcast’s internet service

Comcast CMCSA 0.37%increase; green up pointing triangle will start bundling its Peacock streaming platform with rivals Netflix NFLX 0.19%increase; green up pointing triangle and Apple AAPL 0.13%increase; green up pointing triangle TV+, the latest effort by entertainment companies to retain customers by offering several services at a discount.

The new bundle, called StreamSaver, will be exclusively available to customers of Comcast’s internet service, Comcast Chief Executive Brian Roberts said at a MoffettNathanson investor conference Tuesday.

The announcement comes less than a week after two other media conglomerates, Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery, said they would offer Disney’s Disney+ and Hulu and Warner’s Max service as part of a bundle, which would become available this summer.

The StreamSaver bundle will include Netflix’s ad-based tier, which currently costs $6.99 per month. Comcast expects to announce pricing and other details of the bundle next week, a person familiar with the company’s plans said. The bundle is expected to be launched by the end of the month.

The decisions by rival entertainment companies to join forces and offer their streaming services in a bundle come as they are dealing with competitive pressures. They have been raising prices sharply over the past year or so in an effort to bring their streaming businesses to profitability, but have in turn faced rising levels of customer defections.

Last year, Verizon began offering the ad-supported versions of Max and Netflix for $10 a month combined, instead of $17 a month. Paramount over the past several months had discussions with both Apple and Comcast about bundling their streaming services, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The number of streaming options has vastly increased over the past five years, making it harder for entertainment companies to retain subscribers once they are done binge-watching a specific show. Streamers’ challenges are exacerbated by the fact that most services are available through a monthly subscription.

Offering multiple services as part of one package decreases the likelihood that subscribers will cancel on any given month, the Journal previously reported, citing data from Antenna, a subscriber-measurement company.

Many streaming services moved aggressively to grow their subscriber base in an attempt to rapidly gain market share after their launch. They often charged bargain-basement prices to do so, which led to a financial reckoning and prompted sharp price increases in subsequent years.

Most major streamers have also launched ad-supported tiers of their offerings in an effort to attract price-conscious customers and generate more revenue. Netflix executives have said that growing its ad-supported service, which launched a year and a half ago, is a priority.

Yet the most dominant streaming platform remains one that is free to watch: Google’s YouTube. Nearly 10% of the time Americans spent in front of TV screens last month was on YouTube’s flagship smart-TV app, according to Nielsen data released Tuesday.

The Middle East’s giant sovereign wealth funds have poured money into dozens of U.S. private tech funds with the expectation that some of those petro dollars will funnel back to the region’s startups. Now there are signs that venture capitalists and private equity funds are responding by scouting for investments in local startups.

In recent months General Atlantic made an investment in Eyewa, an eyewear retailer similar to Warby Parker, based in Riyadh and Dubai. And TPG this year backed Riyadh-based Hala, which provides point-of-sale software, according to four people familiar with the transactions, which haven’t been previously reported. Both General Atlantic and TPG have raised money from Saudi Arabia’s $925 billion Public Investment Fund and are in the process of increasing their in-person presence in the region.

The Takeaway

General Atlantic and TPG raised money from deep-pocketed Saudi backers. Now they’re putting some of their cash back into the region—in startups like Eyewa, a Riyadh-based eyewear retailer similar to Warby Parker.

The investments offer a window into the kind of dealmaking investors expect to increase in the coming years. The first wave comprises PE firms and large asset managers like Wellington Management, which tend to invest in companies that have proven they can make money. They’ve been buying stakes in mature Mideast fintech and e-commerce startups, as well as climate and energy funds. Venture capital firms that back younger companies are likely to follow because the VC firms increasingly have financial ties to PIF. The wealth fund’s leaders expect firms that manage its money to invest in the country.

Andreessen Horowitz has discussed launching a multibillion-dollar artificial intelligence fund in partnership with PIF. New York VC and hedge fund Coatue Management participated in the region’s largest deal last year, a $340 million Series C round for Riyadh-based installment lender Tamara. Both Andreessen Horowitz and Coatue have raised money from Sanabil Investments, a subsidiary of PIF.

Smaller U.S. firms are also making inroads. This week, Saudi logistics startup WheeKeep revealed it had raised an $8 million Series A led by New York VC firm Fintech Collective.

U.S. firms’ investments in local startups represent one part of multidecade plans by the governments of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and other Gulf countries to lessen their dependence on oil. In the last decade, they have backed U.S. funds to earn returns on fast-growing tech startups. More recently, the regimes have also invested heavily in developing local startups, courting international founders and technical workers and subsidizing projects like the UAE’s Falcon, an Arabic large language model.

Global investors “traditionally came here for fundraising,” said Eyewa co-founder and co-CEO Mehdi Oudghiri, a former executive at food-delivery startup Foodpanda. But in the last year or so he’s noticed that large PE firms and funds from across the globe are on the hunt to invest.

They “see the region as one of the next frontier markets,” akin to the investment opportunity in fledgling Chinese internet companies 15 to 20 years ago, he said.

Oudghiri and a spokesperson for General Atlantic declined to comment on the firm’s investment in Eyewa. A spokesperson for Hala didn’t respond to requests for comment on TPG’s investment.

The recent flurry of activity aside, the region’s startup economy is still tiny. The total raised by Saudi startups represents less than 1% of $171 billion U.S. startups secured last year and 2% compared to Chinese startups, according to PitchBook.

Middle East startup successes include Careem, a Dubai-based ride-hailing company bought by Uber in 2020 for $3.1 billion and e-commerce startup Souq, acquired by Amazon for $580 million in 2017. These pale in size beside the stars of other emerging markets, such as Indonesian superapp GoTo and China’s ByteDance.

Still, Mideast leaders have been touting their countries’ fast growth as they hobnob at U.S. financial conferences and discuss making more direct investments in U.S. tech companies, particularly in AI.

“Global leading VCs are flocking to the Kingdom to take advantage of the innovation,” said Khalid Al-Falih, Saudi Arabia’s minister of investment, at the Milken Institute’s Global Conference in Los Angeles last week.

Saudi Arabian startups last year raised a record $1.4 billion, more than six times higher than in 2018. That makes the country the most active in the region by startup investments, according to Middle East venture data provider Magnitt.

Global Aspirations

More investments from offshore funds are likely to drive up those totals, particularly as U.S. firms court sovereign wealth fund backers that strongly encourage reciprocal investments. Already some of the biggest firms have been increasing staff and investments in the region.

General Atlantic, which invested just over $400 million in the region since 2015, is in the process of opening offices in the UAE and Saudi Arabia and is hiring local staff in both countries, according to a person familiar with the firm’s strategy. It’s just as interested in investments as in raising capital in the region, the person said. To lead its expansion, last year it appointed Samir Assaf, former HSBC Holdings CEO of global banking and markets, to a new role as chair of Middle East and North Africa.

“We feel that some of these companies can become seriously regional or even global.…What they need is to be scaled up,” Assaf told the publication Arabian Gulf Business Insight.

TPG has long operated an office in Dubai but has recently decided to invest more in the region. In September, the San Francisco–based asset giant appointed Asia managing partner Ganen Sarvananthan to lead the firm’s expansion in the Middle East. Then in December it made a $1.5 billion commitment to Alterra, a new climate investment fund in Abu Dhabi. And last week, TPG announced $8 billion in funds focused on Asia private equity, overseen by Sarvananthan.

“We see Asia and the Middle East as priorities and significant growth areas for the firm,” said TPG CEO Jon Winkelried in a statement ahead of a planned speaking engagement at the Qatar Economic Forum in Doha this week.

The biggest U.S. asset managers are also gearing up to invest more.

Boston-based Wellington Management in November led a $1.5 billion–valuation investment in Tabby, a Riyadh-based “buy now, pay later” startup. In January, Wellington opened an office in Dubai.

BlackRock, which manages $9 trillion in assets, in April established a Riyadh-based investment platform, anchored by an initial $5 billion investment from PIF, which will “support foreign institutional investment into Saudi Arabia,” according to a press release.

The drumbeat of announcements is encouraging to the region’s startups. “These are very strong signals that there is commitment to the region," said Oudghiri.

‘We’re just going to have to see where the inflation data fall out,’ says central bank leader

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell affirmed the central bank’s plans to hold interest rates at the highest level in more than two decades as it awaits evidence that a slowdown in inflation will resume after setbacks this year.

Powell said he expected inflation to continue heading lower but that he was less confident than he had previously been about that outlook, leaving the Fed unable to say whether or when it might be able to lower interest rates.

“We’re just going to have to see where the inflation data fall out,” he said during a moderated discussion in Amsterdam on Tuesday.

Fed officials began 2024 optimistic that they would be able to soon lower rates from their highest level in two decades. After a series of cooler inflation readings in late 2023, it seemed possible that just one or two more months would make officials confident that inflation would reach their 2% target before too long and allow them to begin reducing rates.

Then came three successive disappointing inflation reports, leading Powell and his colleagues to effectively hit the reset button.

“We did not expect this to be a smooth road,” but recent readings were even higher than anticipated, Powell said Tuesday. The Fed leader said he still anticipated interest rates were high enough to slow demand and bring inflation down, meaning the Fed will need to “be patient and let restrictive policy do its work.”

Most officials have indicated that they don’t anticipate the central bank will need to resume interest rate increases. Since last raising rates in July, officials have held their benchmark federal-funds rate steady in a range between 5.25% and 5.5%, the highest in two decades.

Powell had indicated in recent weeks that the central bank would keep interest rates at the current level for even longer if inflation failed to subside in the months ahead. The Fed could cut rates if the labor market weakened unexpectedly, he said.

A measure of inflation that strips out volatile food and energy prices stood at 2.8% in March from a year earlier, down from 4.8% in March 2023. But the 12-month measure masks the more recent setbacks: Over the six months through March, prices rose at an annualized 3.0% rate, up from 1.9% for the six months ending in December. The Fed targets 2% inflation over time.

A key piece of data will come Wednesday, when the Labor Department reports the consumer-price index for April. A measure of producer prices for last month, reported Tuesday before Powell’s speech, had mixed implications for the Fed’s preferred gauge, which will be released later this month.

Meanwhile, the unemployment rate has edged up over the past year to 3.9% in April, from 3.4% one year earlier. Job growth has been steady and economic activity has been stronger than anticipated, partly reflecting increases in immigration.

The stakes are high for Fed officials, who are trying to navigate two risks after conducting over the last two years the most aggressive series of interest rate increases in four decades. One is that they ease too soon, allowing inflation to become entrenched at a level above their 2% target. The other is that they wait until the labor market crumples under the weight of higher rates.

Get ready for the next cable-like streaming bundle: Comcast later this month will launch a three-way bundle — with Peacock, Netflix and Apple TV+ — offered at a deep discount, Comcast chief Brian Roberts said.

Dubbed StreamSaver, the bundle will be available to all Comcast broadband, TV and mobile customers, Roberts said, speaking Tuesday at MoffettNathanson’s 2024 Media, Internet and Communications Conference in New York.

The three streaming services, Peacock, Netflix and Apple TV+, will “come at a vastly reduced price to anything available today,” Roberts said, although he didn’t reveal any pricing. The goal is to “add value to consumers” and “take dollars out” of other people’s streaming businesses, he added, while reinforcing Comcast’s broadband service offerings.

Comcast’s impending launch of the StreamSaver bundle come as other media companies have been assembling similar offerings.

Last week, Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery announced a three-way bundle comprising Max, Disney+ and Hulu starting this summer in the U.S. (with pricing TBA).

In addition, Disney, WBD and Fox Corp. have formed a joint venture to launch a streaming sports bundle, which is slated to debut this fall. Critics have alleged the joint venture, which some have dubbed “Spulu” (a combo of “sports” and “Hulu”), is anticompetitive and violates antitrust law.

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