Caesars Travel opens its 18th travel office in Khaitan

KUWAIT: Caesars Travel Group, Kuwait’s largest travel company, announced the launch of its 18th IATA travel office in Khaitan. This office is located in the heart of downtown Khaitan (Khaitan Street No. 37 and Block No. 6), one of the densely populated area, adjacent to many of the exchange companies. The opening ceremony was attended by many of the leading airline delegates, senior officials from GDS companies-Galileo & Amadeus and most of the managers of Caesars Travel company and its subsidiaries. This is the second office in the same area and the first office was launched during the year 2014 by Caesars Travel.

Caesars Travel Group has a total of 32 offices across the country, dealing with diversified services under the travel umbrella and almost more than 300 staff strength at the moment which is increasing day by day. The concept of starting offices at interior locations and residential areas were pioneered by Caesars Travel Management, with a vision of easy accessibilities to passengers for approaching their offices. “We are seriously thinking of changing this concept as it has been noticed that almost all the travel agents are following this policy during these days which was initiated by us long before and now they are starting their offices closer to our offices. At this stage, we don’t want to get into a filthy competition among our friends, therefore, we will be coming out very soon with another facelift of Caesars Travel offices which I am sure, a novel idea in supporting our valued passengers” said P N J Kumar, Chief Executive Officer of Caesars Travel Group.

Caesars Int’l Travel Company, one of the subsidiaries dedicated for exclusive representation of airlines has recently signed an agreement with one of the seaplanes operating in Dubai, “Seawings”, offers seaplane tourist flights based in Dubai and this will be a new concept of luxury travels for traveling in Dubai. Dubai is a land of spectacular wonders, a city of superlatives, where everything is built to excite. The Seawings seaplane offers panoramic views of iconic landmarks of this fascinating emirate and more details will be available from Caesars Int’l office, based in Al-Jawhara Tower.

Recently, Caesars Travel Group has started its first global office in India at Bangalore, which is also an exclusively represented office for Cebu Pacific, Maldivian, Druk Air and many of the world’s leading holiday/cruise products. “With the help of our India office, we are planning to bridge a useful platform for Kuwait based passengers towards their traffic needs from India as we are not only representing these airlines but many of the other services, such as airline ticketing, leisure holidays and travel consultancy services for corporate, are also made available from this office, eventually spreading these services available from various parts of India by opening our outlets soon. We are now able to offer a complete showcase for our airline products and diversified services as well as creative and novel ideas in designing their travel itineraries and leisure holidays, bringing this central mission to an unforgettable travel experience in a new way to our passengers approaching us. Although there are many travel company chains in Kuwait, our goal is to trying to find out a unique formula with a new science how can we can offer more to our clients, that’s the research we are fully engaged at now, Kumar added.

OPEC oil price down

to $38.37 pb VIENNA: The OPEC daily basket price went down 15 cents last Friday and stood at $38.37 per barrel compared with $38.52 pb the previous day, the cartel said yesterday. The yearly average of the OPEC’s basket price hit $96.29 a barrel, it added. The new OPEC Reference Basket of Crudes (ORB) is made up of the following: Saharan Blend (Algeria), Girassol (Angola), Oriente (Ecuador), Iran Heavy (Islamic Republic of Iran), Basra Light (Iraq), Kuwait Export (Kuwait), Es Sider (Libya), Bonny Light (Nigeria), Qatar Marine (Qatar), Arab Light (Saudi Arabia), Murban (UAE) and Merey (Venezuela). During their annual meeting in June, the OPEC oil ministers agreed to maintain their output ceiling of 30 million barrels per day. The OPEC expects high demand for oil and high supply on the part of non-OPEC member states in the second half of 2015.

Emirates Global Aluminium

launches $4.9bn loan DUBAI: State-owned Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA), one of the largest aluminium firms in the world, has invited banks to participate in a $4.9 billion loan to refinance existing project finance debt, the company said yesterday. EGA, created by the merger of state-owned aluminium companies Dubai Aluminium (Dubal) and Abu Dhabi’s Emirates Aluminium (Emal), will raise funds with a seven-year lifespan. The deal will include both conventional and Islamic debt. The announcement confirmed a Reuters report on Sunday which said the company had mandated BNP Paribas, Citi, Dubai Islamic Bank, Emirates NBD, ING, National Bank of Abu Dhabi and Natixis to arrange the loan. The price at which the loan was launched was not disclosed by the company. “This marks the first of a series of transactions being implemented to optimise EGA’s capital structure” said Samer Jumean, EGA’s Head of Financing and Capital Markets activities.

Albaraka Turk weighs capital-boosting sukuk DUBAI: Turkish Islamic bank Albaraka Turk has opened books for a dollar-denominated sukuk issue which would bolster its supplementary or Tier 2 capital, a document from lead arrangers showed yesterday. Initial price thoughts for the ten-year bond, which has a one-time call option in 2020, have been set in the area of 10.5 percent, the document showed. Under a call option, the borrower can repay the bond either at a pre-agreed rate or at a rate determined at the time of the clause being exercised. Last week, the lender had received indications of interest totalling over $250 million for an issue paying in the area of 10 percent. Barwa Bank, Dubai Islamic Bank, Emirates NBD, Nomura, Noor Bank, Standard Chartered and QInvest are arranging the sukuk issue, which could price as early as yesterday. Albaraka Turk is a unit of Bahrain-based Al-Baraka Banking Group.

NBA raises $200m via two-year note DUBAI: National Bank of Abu Dhabi (NBAD), the largest bank in the United Arab Emirates by assets, has issued a $200 million floating rate note of two years duration, it said in a bourse filing yesterday. The note will pay monthly interest starting on Dec. 20 at a variable margin over the one-month London interbank offered rate , it told the London Stock Exchange. In December 2015, the lender will pay interest of 0.05 percent per annum over LIBOR. This payment will gradually increase on a monthly basis to the final payment of 0.90 percent over the benchmark in October 2017. The bond has a put option giving the holder the right, but not the obligation, to demand early repayment of the principal from the borrower. Should this option be exercised, repayment will happen 100 days later.

Turkey’s Aselsan says signs deal on JV in Saudi ISTANBUL: Turkish defense company Aselsan said yesterday it had signed a provisional deal with Saudi firm TAQNIA on the establishment of a joint venture in Saudi Arabia. It made the announcement in a statement to the Istanbul stock exchange. No further details were immediately available.