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HONG KONG — Bitmain Technologies, the world’s largest designer of products used for mining cryptocurrencies, confirmed it was bringing its IPO to Hong Kong in what will be an important test of institutional investors’ interest in the crypto sector. 

Bitmain’s prospectus, investors’ first official look at its financial health, was filed late on Wednesday and revealed that it made a profit of $742 million for the first six months of this year. The bulk of the company’s revenue came from selling hardware to mine cryptocurrencies, the filing said. 

The company said it will use the proceeds of the IPO to invest in research and development and expand its production output.

Bitmain designs different microchips specialised for mining cryptocurrenies and for artificial intelligence applications, as well as manufacturing cryptocurrency and AI hardware, and managing crypto mining farms. 

The IPO comes at a time when the cryptocurrency sector is facing a number of headwinds. 

The price of Bitcoin has fallen 65 per cent since its December 2017 peak, and on Wednesday one Bitcoin was worth around $6,500. This fall has hurt the profitability of mining, and in turn has been weighing on sales of mining hardware. 

In addition, there are regulatory concerns, given the Chinese authorities’ public scepticism about cryptocurrencies. 

Test of confidence 

Bitmain is the third, and largest, Chinese maker of Bitcoin miners hoping to float in Hong Kong this year. It had 85 per cent share of the cryptocurrency mining rig market in 2017, according to Bernstein research. 

Canaan Inc., which had 10 per cent of the market according to Bernstein and smaller rival Ebang filed their listing documents in May and June respectively, but have yet to complete their IPOs. 

As well as testing investor sentiment around Bitcoin, Bitmain’s IPO will be another test of confidence in Hong Kong’s equity market. 

The IPO is expected to be the city’s third largest tech float after Chinese smartphone marker Xiaomi Corp.’s 1810.HK IPO of $5.4 billion, and that of online food delivery-to-ticketing services platform Meituan Dianping, which earlier this month raised $4.2 biilion.

Like Xiaomi and Meituan, Bitmain said in its prospectus that it had adopted a dual class share structure, and that each share held by the company’s founders, Zhan Ketuan and Wu Jihan, would allow them to exercise 10 votes. 

In April, the Hong Kong bourse changed its rules to allow some companies with two classes of shares to list, in a bid to lure listings from large innovative companies. 

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — The World Bank warned on Tuesday that the Gaza Strip’s economy is in “free fall” as cuts to aid and salaries add to an already crippling Israeli blockade on the Hamas-run enclave.

The bank’s report will be presented to the international donor group for Palestinians, known as the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee, at its meeting in New York on Thursday on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.

The meeting will coincide with the speeches to the assembly of both Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Already squeezed by the more than decade-long Israeli blockade, Gaza’s economy has been further weakened by US aid cuts and financial measures by Abbas’s Palestinian Authority.

Abbas has been seeking to pressure Hamas, which expelled his loyalists from the territory in 2007, as well as save costs.

According to the World Bank, he has reduced monthly payments to Gaza by some $30 million.

US President Donald Trump’s administration has, meanwhile, cut more than $500 million in aid to the Palestinians, including ending all support for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

“The economic deterioration in both Gaza and West Bank can no longer be counteracted by foreign aid, which has been in steady decline, nor by the private sector, which remains confined by restrictions on movement, access to primary materials and trade,” the bank said.

Gaza’s economy shrunk by 6 per cent in the first quarter of 2018 “with indications of further deterioration since then”, it said.

The bank said one in two Gazans now lives below the poverty line and that unemployment is running at 53 per cent.

More than 70 per cent of young people are jobless, it said.

“Increased frustration is feeding into the increased tensions which have already started spilling over into unrest and setting back the human development of the region’s large youth population,” said Marina Wes, World Bank director for the West Bank and Gaza.

On September 20, UN envoy for the Middle East peace process Nickolay Mladenov told the UN Security Council that “Gaza can explode any minute.”

In recent months, mass protests along Gaza’s border with Israel have triggered repeated deadly clashes with the army, prompting warnings of the risk of a new conflict.

At least 187 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire since the protests began on March 30. One Israeli soldier has been killed in that time.

Israel says its actions are necessary to defend the border and accuses Hamas of using the protests as cover to attempt infiltrations and attacks.

Palestinians and human rights groups say protesters have been shot while posing no real threat.

NEW YORK — Oil prices jumped more than 2 per cent to a four-year high on Monday after Saudi Arabia and Russia ruled out any immediate increase in production despite calls by US President Donald Trump for action to raise global supply.

The Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and non-OPEC states, including top producer Russia, gathered in Algiers on Sunday for a meeting that ended with no formal recommendation for any additional supply boost to counter falling supply from Iran.

“The market’s still being driven by concerns about Iranian and Venezuelan supply,” said Gene McGillian, director of market research at Tradition Energy in Stamford. “The failure of the producers to address that adequately this weekend is creating a buying opportunity.” 

Brent crude hit its highest since November 2014 at $80.94 per barrel, up $2.14 or 2.7 per cent, before easing to $80.62 by 11:05am EDT (15:05 GMT). UD light crude was $1.43, or 2 per cent, higher at $72.21.

OPEC leader Saudi Arabia and its biggest oil-producer ally outside the group, Russia, on Sunday effectively rebuffed a demand from Trump for moves to cool the market.

“I do not influence prices,” Saudi Energy Minister Khalid Al Falih told reporters on Sunday.

Last week, Trump said that OPEC “must get prices down now!”, but Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh said on Monday OPEC had not responded positively to Trump’s demands.

“It is now increasingly evident, that in the face of producers reluctant to raise output, the market will be confronted with supply gaps in the next 3-6 months that it will need to resolve through higher oil prices,” BNP Paribas Oil Strategist Harry Tchilinguirian told Reuters Global Oil Forum.

Commodity traders Trafigura and Mercuria said that Brent could rise to $90 per barrel by Christmas and pass $100 in early 2019, as markets tighten once US sanctions against Iran are fully implemented from November.

JPMorgan said US sanctions on Iran could lead to a loss of 1.5 million barrels per day (bpd), while Mercuria warned that as much as 2 million bpd could be knocked out of the market.

A source familiar with OPEC discussions told Reuters on Friday that OPEC and other producers have been discussing the possibility of raising output by 500,000bpd.

“We expect that those OPEC countries with available spare capacity, led by Saudi Arabia, will increase output but not completely offset the drop in Iranian barrels,” said Edward Bell, commodity analyst at Emirates NBD bank.

The market has looked to softening demand from trade tensions between the US and China to offset the production cuts from Iran. 

Absent signs that trade tensions have eroded Chinese demand, the market will continue to surge, Tradition’s McGillian said. “That is one of the reasons we have cruised toward $80,” he said.

US commercial crude oil inventories are at their lowest since early 2015 and although US oil production is near a record high of 11 million bpd, subdued US drilling points towards a slowdown in output.

LONDON — Comcast beat Rupert Murdoch's Twenty-First Century Fox in the battle for Sky on Saturday after offering £30.6 billion ($40 billion) in a dramatic auction to decide the fate of the pay-television group.

The US cable giant bid £17.28 a share for control of London-listed Sky, bettering a £15.67-a-share offer by Fox, Britain's Takeover Panel said.

Buying Sky will make Philadelphia-based Comcast, which owns the NBC network and Universal Pictures, the world's largest pay-TV operator with around 52 million customers.

Chairman and chief executive Brian Roberts has had his eye on Sky as a way to help counter declines in subscribers for traditional cable TV in its core US market as viewers switch to video-on-demand services like Netflix and Amazon.

"This is a great day for Comcast," he said. "This acquisition will allow us to quickly, efficiently and meaningfully increase our customer base and expand internationally."

Comcast's knock-out offer thwarted Murdoch's long-held ambition to win control of Sky, and is also a setback for US entertainment giant Walt Disney which would have likely been its ultimate owner.

Disney has agreed a separate $71 billion deal to buy most of Fox's film and TV assets, including its existing 39 per cent stake in Sky, and would have taken full ownership after a successful Fox takeover. 

Comcast's final offer was a jump on its bid going into the auction of £14.75, and compares with Sky's closing price of £15.85 on Friday.

Comcast believed it needed to deliver a knock-out blow given that Fox's existing stake in Sky gave it a chance of victory if it was a close second to Comcast, two sources said.

Its final offer — more than double Sky's share price before Fox made its approach in December 2016 — quickly won the backing of Sky's independent directors on Saturday.

"We are recommending it as it represents materially superior value," said Martin Gilbert, chairman of Sky's independent committee. "We are focused on drawing this process to a successful and swift close and therefore urge shareholders to accept the recommended Comcast offer."

Fox noted the recommendation, saying it was considering options for its 39 per cent stake and would make another announcement in due course.

"Sky is a remarkable story and we are proud to have played such a significant role in building the incredible value reflected today in Comcast's offer," Fox said.

Fox's holding, which Comcast's offer values at more than $15 billion, stems from Murdoch's role in the creation of the company nearly three decades ago.

His younger son James was pivotal in building Sky into Europe's leading pay-TV operator as its former chief executive and current chairman. 

Comcast, which requires 50 per cent plus one share of Sky's equity to win control, said it was also seeking to buy Sky shares in the market.

Huge price 

One fund manager who holds Sky shares said nobody could complain about the Comcast price. 

"The question now is if Fox actually sells out and if not can Comcast get to 50 per cent," he said. 

One banker involved in the auction said: "Did Comcast pay a lot more than they needed to?"

Sources familiar with the matter said Fox, Disney and Comcast had not been in discussions about the 39 per cent stake.

The auction was a dramatic climax to a transatlantic bidding battle waged since February, when Comcast gate-crashed Fox's takeover of Sky.

It is a blow to 87-year-old Murdoch, who tried to buy Sky eight years ago only for the bid to collapse in the fallout from a phone-hacking scandal at his British newspaper business. 

Some politicians have opposed a deal, citing concerns about the influence Murdoch would wield over the UK's news agenda.

Fox made a string of concessions to assuage those worries and land a company that serves 23 million households in Britain, Ireland, Germany, Austria and Italy.

Sky's Chief Executive Jeremy Darroch said Comcast's victory was the beginning of a new chapter. "Sky has never stood still, and with Comcast our momentum will only increase," he said.

ALGIERS – The Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its allies reduced oil output in August as a drop in Iranian supply due to US sanctions derailed their attempts to raise production to agreed levels, delegates said on Saturday as the energy producers prepared to hold talks in Algiers.

The development further raises pressure on the organisation to boost supply amid calls from US President Donald Trump to lower oil prices.

On Friday, a source familiar with the discussions told Reuters OPEC and its allies led by Russia were considering the possibility of raising crude supplies by a further 500,000 barrels per day (bpd) as US sanctions on OPEC's third-largest producer, Iran, bite into Tehran's exports.

"If an increase in production is proposed, there will be plenty of market counter-argument that it reduces even further the available spare capacity," Olivier Jakob from consultancy Petromatrix said.

"Saudi Arabia has made the mistake of trying to compensate for the loss of Iranian supplies with just-in-time replacement; but the oil market is looking for greater supply security than that. As a result, the strength of oil prices is now putting oil demand growth at risk," he added.

An OPEC and non-OPEC monitoring committee gathering in the Algerian capital this weekend found that oil producers' compliance with a supply-reduction agreement reached 129 per cent in August, two committee delegates said. This compares with a compliance level of 109 per cent for July, indicating that the group over-achieved on its agreed cut.

Seeking to reverse a downturn in oil prices that began in 2014, OPEC, Russia and other allies decided in late 2016 to reduce supply by some 1.8 million bpd. 

In June this year, however, after months of cutting by more than their pact had called for amid involuntary reductions from Venezuela and other producers, they agreed to boost output by returning to 100 per cent compliance. 

That equates to an increase of about 1 million bpd, but the latest figures show they are some way from achieving that target.

Oil reached $80 a barrel this month, prompting Trump to demand again that OPEC bring down prices.

"We protect the countries of the Middle East, they would not be safe for very long without us, and yet they continue to push for higher and higher oil prices! We will remember. The OPEC monopoly must get prices down now!" he wrote on Twitter.

Higher gasoline prices for US consumers could create a political headache for Trump before the November mid-term congressional elections.

OPEC sources said any official action to raise output would require OPEC to hold what it calls an extraordinary meeting — a proposal that is not on the table yet.

But the joint OPEC and non-OPEC ministerial committee known as the JMMC, which meets on Sunday, can still recommend a further increase in output if needed, the sources said. 

BRUSSELS — The EU warned social network Facebook on Thursday to bring its allegedly "misleading" consumer terms of service in line with the bloc's rules by the end of the year or to risk financial penalties.

"My patience has reached its limit," EU Justice and Consumer Affairs Commissioner Vera Jourova said in a statement. "It is now time for action and no more promises."

Jourova said she would call on consumer protection authorities across the 28-country bloc, which requested the changes last year, to act swiftly and sanction the company if Facebook failed to comply.

"While Facebook assured me [it would] finally adapt any remaining misleading terms of services by December, this has been ongoing for too long," she said.

The commission said that proposals made by the Mark Zuckerberg-led company were "very limited", even after the company changed its conditions earlier this year.

These new terms of services "contain a misleading presentation of the main characteristics of Facebook's services", the commission said.

A spokesperson for the social media giant defended the changes and said they were "much clearer on what is and what isn't allowed on Facebook and on the options people have”.

“[Facebook] will continue our close cooperation to understand any further concerns and make appropriate updates."

Under the microscope 

The commission, meanwhile, said that rent-a-room behemoth Airbnb has made the necessary changes to its consumer terms after also being under fire in Brussels.

The bloc's executive arm has been at the forefront of a regulatory crackdown on US tech giants, having also slammed Google with huge anti-trust fines.

The commission has been cracking down on what is sees as risks for European consumers using the services of US internet giants like Facebook, Google, Amazon, Uber and others.

Facebook also came under the microscope after this year's Cambridge Analytica scandal in which the company admitted that up to 87 million users may have had their data hijacked. 

The scandal was the worst public relations disaster Facebook has faced since its launch in 2004.

The European Consumer Organisation (BEUC) firmly backed the commission's stand against Facebook.

"When a company doesn't do what the law says, there should be serious and deterrent sanctions," said the group's Augusta Maciuleviciute.

WASHINGTON — A complaint has been filed with the US government accusing Facebook and 10 other companies of using the platform’s job ad targeting system to discriminate on the basis of gender.

The complaint was announced on Tuesday by the American Civil Liberties Union, a union called the Communications Workers of America and a labour law firm, on behalf of three female job seekers and a group of “thousands” of members represented by the union. 

It charges that job ads on Facebook targeted male users only. It also alleges that most of the listings were for jobs in male-dominated fields, so women and non-binary users were excluded from seeing these ads.

Facebook lets advertisers target ads on the basis of gender and age, which is against the law in America, the complaint reads.

“I shouldn’t be shut out of the chance to hear about a job opportunity just because I am a woman,” said Bobbi Spees, one of the three women named in the complaint.

Facebook spokesman Joe Osborne said in a statement to CNN Money that there is no place for discrimination on Facebook.

“It’s strictly prohibited in our policies, and over the past year we’ve strengthened our systems to further protect against misuse,” Osborne said.

Facebook will defend itself once it has reviewed the complaint, he added.

The ACLU noted that online platforms such as Facebook are generally not liable for content published by others.

“But in this case, Facebook is doing much more than merely publishing content created by others,” the advocacy group argued.

“It has built the architecture for this discriminatory marketing framework, enabled and encouraged advertisers to use it, and delivered the gender-based ads according to employers’ sex-based preferences.”

Last month, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development accused Facebook of breaking the law by letting landlords and home sellers use its ad-targeting system to discriminate against potential buyers or tenants.

Facebook responded by cutting more than 5,000 ad-targeting options to prevent advertisers from discriminating on the basis of traits such as religion or race.

AMMAN- UniHouse, a British company which operates one of the two IELTS test centres in Amman, will soon launch the Occupational English Test (OET) at its location in Jubeiha.

OET is an international English language test for the healthcare sector, which is approved by governments, immigration, universities and colleges for visas, migration, study, registration and work. It covers a wide range of healthcare professions, including: dentistry, dietetics, medicine, nursing, occupational therapy, optometry, pharmacy, physiotherapy, podiatry, radiography, speech pathology, and veterinary science.

This is the first time the exam will be available in Jordan, and it is an invaluable resource for healthcare professionals looking to study or work abroad.

OET is recognised by regulatory healthcare bodies in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, the UK and Ireland. The exam insures professionals are able to communicate effectively with English-speakers while delivering healthcare.

UniHouse expects to begin opening registration for the OET exam as of October 2018. An official announcement will be made on their website, www.unihouse.com.jo.

The United States will spare Apple Inc.'s Watch and other consumer gadgets from the latest round of tariffs on Chinese goods, according to a list of products released by the US Trade Representative (USTR) on Monday.

But parts for the computer servers and networking gear that power "cloud" data centres and Internet-based services now face a levy, as do some of the parts for the machines used to make semiconductors.

US President Donald Trump escalated his trade war with China on Monday, imposing 10 per cent tariffs on about $200 billion worth of Chinese imports and he warned that if China takes retaliatory action against US farmers or industries, "we will immediately pursue phase three, which is tariffs on approximately $267 billion of additional imports".

The administration's proposal drew protest from technology companies earlier this year, but the final list of taxed devices from the USTR avoids many big consumer brand names and products.

The iPhone was not among the “wide range” of products that Apple told regulators would be hit by the $200 billion round of tariffs in a September 5 comment letter to trade officials. Apple feared for its Apple Watch and its wireless AirPods headphones, but both were left off the list announced on Monday.

The new round of tariffs will take effect on September 24 at a 10 per cent level and rise to 25 per cent on January 1, 2019. 

However, if Trump expands the tariffs to an additional $267 billion worth of goods then nearly every Chinese import would be affected, including the iPhone, along with all other smart phones. Apple shares fell 0.7 per cent to $216.29 after hours.

Shares of China and Taiwan-based Apple suppliers slipped on Tuesday morning in Asia. Foxconn, a Taiwan-based manufacturer formally known as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co٫, fell 2 per cent, while assembler Pegatron Corp٫ dropped 2.4 per cent. Camera lens-maker Largan Precision Co. Ltd٫ slid nearly 9 per cent.

In an earlier round of tariffs on $50 billion of goods, the Trump administration removed proposals on flat-panel television sets for the final list in June.

The new list would also spare fitness trackers from Fitbit Inc٫, which had said in a comment letter to regulators that the tariffs would compromise its own investment in the United States. Fitbit shares closed down 1 per cent on Monday.

"We welcome this development and we appreciate the administration's time and effort to listen to industry and consumer concerns," a Fitbit spokeswoman told Reuters.

New list

However, some products that help computer networks operate, such as routers, will remain on the new list, the official said. That could affect smaller technology firms such as Eero, a startup company that makes home routers and had asked to be exempted from the tariffs. Altogether about 300 product categories were given reprieves, including some non-tech consumer devices such as bicycle helmets and baby car seats.

Apple did not respond to a Reuters request for comment, and Eero declined to comment. Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook had dinner with US President Donald Trump last month, though neither gave details of discussions.

Apple had said the US tariffs would affect prices for a "wide range" of Apple products, including its Watch, in a letter commenting on administration proposals earlier this month.

"Our concern with these tariffs is that the US will be hardest hit, and that will result in lower US growth and competitiveness and higher prices for US consumers," Apple said earlier in a letter commenting on the proposal.

After Apple's comments, Trump said in a tweet said that there was an "easy solution" for Apple to avoid tariffs. "Make your products in the United States instead of China. Start building new plants now," he Tweeted on September 8.

An array of equipment used to make servers and networking gear for data centres is on the list announced on Monday. 

A group of tech companies including Cisco Systems Inc., Dell Technologies Inc., Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Co. and Juniper Networks had asked that many of those items be dropped, but they remained on the list with only a few exceptions such as a group of networking-related accessories.

In a comment to trade regulators on September 6, the group said that "by raising the cost of networking products, the proposed duties would impede the development and adoption of cloud-based services and infrastructure".

Apple also told regulators earlier that some of the gear in its data centers was likely to be hit by tariffs.

The chip industry was also hit by the new levies. 

Moreover, Lam Research Corp., a company that makes gear for manufacturing chips, said in a September 6 letter to trade regulators that duties on raw silicon, ceramic machinery parts and other items "add costs to our US manufacturing operations and reduce our competitiveness in the global semiconductor manufacturing market". All of the items in Lam's letter were included in the final list. 

Neither Lam nor the group of enterprise technology companies immediately responded to request for comment.

DUBAI — Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) has agreed to invest more than $1 billion in Lucid Motors, adding to the emerging competition facing US electric vehicle maker Tesla.

The funding will enable Silicon Valley-based Lucid to achieve the commercial launch of its Lucid Air electric vehicle in 2020, PIF said as it announced the deal on Monday, joining Daimler-owned Mercedes, BMW, and Volkswagen’s Audi and Porsche divisions in the battle for dominance in the market for premium battery cars.

The deal comes only a few weeks after Tesla founder Elon Musk said the Saudi sovereign wealth fund could help him to take his company private. Shares in Tesla initially dropped 2.2 per cent on Monday’s announcement before recovering to positive territory.

The Lucid investment, which PIF said is more than $1 billion but failed to give an exact figure, is also part of Saudi Arabia’s efforts to build an environmentally friendly economy as it presses ahead with the Vision 2030 plan to diversify the kingdom away from reliance on crude oil. 

“By investing in the rapidly expanding electric vehicle market, PIF is gaining exposure to long-term growth opportunities, supporting innovation and technological development and driving revenue and sectoral diversification for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” a PIF representative said. 

Obtaining cheap capital is a constant challenge for carmakers, which can spend $1 billion or more engineering a single new model.

Based in Newark, California, Lucid Motors was founded in 2007 as Atieva by Bernard Tse, a former Tesla vice president and board member, and Sam Weng, a former executive at Oracle Corp. and Redback Networks. 

The funding, which will be made through a special-purpose vehicle wholly owned by PIF, will be used by Lucid to complete development and testing of the Lucid Air, construct a factory in Arizona and start production of the car.

“The convergence of new technologies is reshaping the automobile, but the benefits have yet to be truly realised,” said Peter Rawlinson, Lucid’s chief technology officer.

“This is inhibiting the pace at which sustainable mobility and energy are adopted. At Lucid, we will demonstrate the full potential of the electric connected vehicle in order to push the industry forward.”

Earlier on Monday, PIF said it had raised an $11 billion international syndicated loan for general corporate purposes.

The fund has already made substantial commitments to other environmentally friendly projects, including renewables and recycling, and to technology companies or investments, including a $45 billion agreement to invest in a giant technology fund led by Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp.