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RIYADH: UAE-based hospitality platform Qstay has raised a $6.5 million seed funding round, in a mix of debt and equity.
The company currently operates as a virtual hotel brand with 200 units as it also provides digital access to nearby pools, beaches, gyms, and spas for its guests.
Founded in 2020, the company is planning to use its acquired funding to invest in technology as well as expand its footprint and product offerings.
DUBAI: Abu Dhabi’s Etihad Airways is not seeing any effects from the turmoil caused by US President Donald Trump’s tariff policies, its CEO Antonoaldo Neves told Reuters on Monday, while adding it was too early to fully gauge the impact of the levies.
Trump’s announcement of sweeping tariffs on dozens of US trading partners this month — and then his pausing of most of them — created widespread market uncertainty and raised fears of a global economic downturn.
Neves said Etihad had recorded strong seat occupancy levels in recent weeks despite the trade tensions, and that the volatility could even create opportunities in some instances.
He expects more Europeans, for example, to take advantage of the euro’s recent gains against the dollar and the Gulf region’s dollar-pegged currencies to travel.
“It means that the euro now is stronger when you compare it to the Middle Eastern currency ... So I expect to see more Europeans coming,” Neves said on the sidelines of the Arabian Travel Market fair in Dubai.
Neves’ comments echo Riyadh Air, which said earlier on Monday that global economic uncertainty had not reduced demand for travel to the Saudi capital.
If tariff-induced turmoil does impact passenger numbers, Neves said Etihad, which has a fleet of around 100 aircraft, had a contingency plan and could rely on its flexibility.
“About 60 percent of our planes are unencumbered, so they’re all fully paid for. If I get a crisis one day, I park planes ... and save 75 percent of the cost,” he said.
At a press conference earlier on Monday, Neves said Etihad planned to add 20 to 22 new planes this year, as it aims to expand its fleet to more than 170 planes by 2030 and boost Abu Dhabi’s economic diversification strategy.
The UAE’s capital is investing heavily in sectors like tourism to cut its dependence on oil revenues, and in 2023 it launched a new terminal at Zayed International Airport that tripled the hub’s annual capacity to 45 million passengers.
Etihad, which is owned by Abu Dhabi’s $225 billion wealth fund ADQ, has been through a multi-year restructuring and management shake-up, but has expanded under Neves.
He said that 10 of this year’s new aircraft would be Airbus A321LRs, which the carrier launched on Monday and will start operating in August. The remainder include six Airbus A350s and four Boeing 787s.
Airlines in recent years have been plagued by delayed plane deliveries as manufacturers like Boeing and Airbus struggled with the pace of orders in a post-pandemic travel boom, among other issues.
Neves, who declined to give specifics on the order pipeline, said he was not happy with the delays but that they were not compromising the airline's growth plans.
Etihad is always in talks with planemakers, he said, when asked whether the carrier could be interested in acquiring some of the dozens of planes that Boeing is looking to resell after they were locked out of China due to tariffs.
DUBAI: Riyadh Air CEO Tony Douglas said on Monday the Saudi startup carrier would be ready to buy Boeing aircraft destined for Chinese airlines if they are not delivered due to the escalating trade war between the US and China.
Boeing is looking to resell potentially dozens of planes locked out of China by tariffs after repatriating a third jet to the US in a delivery standoff that drew new criticism of Beijing from US President Donald Trump.
“What we’ve done... is made it quite clear to Boeing, should that ever happen, and the keyword there is should, we’ll happily take them all,” Douglas said in an interview with Reuters on the sidelines of the Arabian Travel Market conference.
Boeing took the rare step of publicly flagging the potential aircraft sale during an analyst call last week, saying that there would be no shortage of buyers in a tight jet market.
Riyadh Air, backed by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, has been ordering planes from both Boeing and Airbus ahead of its launch, including 60 narrow-body A321-family jets from Airbus in October and up to 72 Boeing 787 Dreamliners ordered in March 2023.
The airline does not expect delivery delays from either planemaker to be resolved any time soon.
Douglas said Riyadh Air had not seen any impact on demand for travel to and from the Kingdom’s capital from global macroeconomic uncertainty, adding that the company plans to announce an order for wide-body jets this summer.
The airline, which is aiming to launch in the fourth quarter, has hired 500 employees and intends to increase its workforce to 1,000 over the next nine to 12 months, Douglas said. Thereafter, hiring of pilots and cabin crew will steadily continue as aircraft are delivered.
Saudi Arabia is seeking to acquire a slice of the global travel industry, including business travel, as the Kingdom pours billions of dollars into developing giga-projects to diversify its economy away from hydrocarbons.
This includes the Dubai to Riyadh route, which is often used by bankers, lawyers, consultants and influencers. Douglas said the less than 2-hour flight represents one of the world’s most profitable routes in the world for an airline, from a revenue per kilometer standpoint.
The restart of flights from the UAE into Syria, and flying through the Syrian airspace is “probably a signal that things are at the margin moving in the right direction,” he added.
RIYADH: Jordan registered 20 patents and nearly 1,000 trademarks in the first quarter of the year, building on 2024’s totals of 111 and 5,687, respectively, according to official data.
Of the patents logged between January and March, one was a local innovation, signaling continued growth in domestic research and development, Jordan News Agency reported.
The data also revealed 999 new trademarks were registered, while 1,608 existing trademarks were renewed during the same period. The previous year saw the renewal of 6,245 trademarks, Petra added.
In addition to new registrations, the Industrial Property Protection Directorate at the Ministry of Industry, Trade, and Supply renewed 138 patents, issued five industrial property licenses, processed 310 requests for name and address changes, and approved the transfer of ownership for 499 industrial properties.
In the most recent rankings from the World Intellectual Property Organization, covering 2023, Jordan was placed 58th globally for patent applications, with residents filing 21 patents, a 16 percent decrease from the previous year.
Pharmaceuticals dominated technical fields, accounting for 37.8 percent of patents, followed by medical technology.
Trademark filings showed stronger momentum, reaching 5,640 in 2023, with residents driving nearly 70 percent of registrations.
The US, Saudi Arabia, and China were top foreign destinations for Jordanian IP filings, underscoring global commercial ties.
Challenges persist, including low resident applications per gross domestic product and a modest share of women inventors. Yet, universities contributed 47.3 percent of Patent Cooperation Treaty applications, pointing to academia’s pivotal role in research and development.
The latest data from WIPO showed that Saudi Arabia recorded 6,496 patent applications in 2023 — a 31 percent annual increase — ranking 27th globally.
Residents in the Kingdom drove nearly half of these filings, with civil engineering accounting for 21.9 percent and chemicals for 12.3 percent.
Saudi Arabia also registered 37,068 trademark filings, reflecting robust commercial activity, although women inventors accounted for just 7.8 percent of patents.
The UAE demonstrated dynamic growth, particularly in trademarks, with 30,472 filings, and patents, with 992 applications.
Qatar’s IP activity remained modest but specialized, with 180 patent applications and 3,155 trademark filings in 2023.
RIYADH: Saudi developer Emaar, The Economic City has signed final agreements with four local banks to reschedule SR3.39 billion ($904 million) in existing debt and secure a new credit facility.
In a bourse filing, the company — the developer of King Abdullah Economic City — announced that it had secured the deals on April 27 with Alinma Bank, Saudi Awwal Bank, Banque Saudi Fransi, and Saudi National Bank. This follows a non-binding term sheet signed in September.
The agreement consolidates existing loans, extends repayment deadlines, and provides a new SR287.2 million credit facility. The rescheduled debt, previously due between 2021 and 2029, will now mature on Dec. 31, 2033, with repayments starting in 2029.
According to a statement, the restructured debt is split into two tranches, with the second potentially extending its maturity to 2036, while the new short-term facility must be repaid by mid-2026, subject to an optional one-year extension.
In its official statement on Tadawul, Emaar, The Economic City said: “This rescheduling comes as part of the company’s announced capital optimization plan, designed to stabilize the company’s financial and operational positions and optimize its capital structure to enhance its ability to move forward with its growth plans.”
To secure the deal, the company pledged real estate mortgages covering 150 percent of the rescheduled debt and 175 percent of the new facility, along with account security and promissory notes.
The restructuring is expected to enhance liquidity and reduce financing costs, aligning with Emaar, The Economic City’s long-term strategy. Saudi National Bank is classified as a related party due to its ties with the Public Investment Fund, a major shareholder in the company.
The developer has been undergoing financial restructuring to stabilize its operations amid widening losses. In the first nine months of 2024, the company reported a net loss of SR1.15 billion, driven by a 74 percent decline in revenue.
In March, the firm strengthened its financial position through a SR1 billion restructured loan agreement with PIF, a key component of its capital optimization strategy that provided extended repayment terms and enhanced liquidity.
RIYADH: More than 96,000 real estate brokerage contracts were documented in Saudi Arabia in the first quarter of 2025 — a 97 percent annual rise, according to new figures.
Released by the Kingdom’s Real Estate General Authority, the data indicated that this worked out at a rate of 44 per hour and 1,066 per day.
This brings the total number of contracts documented since the launch of the real estate brokerage system in 2023 to more than 1.4 million.
The statement highlighted that the almost double growth rate reflects “customer awareness and commitment to implementing real estate laws and regulations that regulate contractual relationships, preserve rights, and create a reliable and organized real estate environment.”
The recorded numbers correlate with the authority’s aim to enhance the real estate investment ecosystem by streamlining procedures, creating more opportunities for investors, and fostering a competitive sector through the provision of accurate, transparent data via the Saudi Real Estate Indicators.
They also align with Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 goal of increasing homeownership to 70 percent by 2030.
The figures further showed that during the first quarter of 2025 REGA issued over 7,875 licenses across various sectors, including brokerage and marketing, consulting and analysis, property and facility management, as well as auctions.
Over 105,000 licenses were granted for real estate advertising, along with the approval of 10 new electronic real estate platforms, raising the total number of licensed platforms to 71 since the real estate brokerage system was introduced.
“This contributes to achieving the efficiency and quality of real estate transactions within a regulated environment that ensures the preservation of rights and enhances the reliability of the sector,” the authority’s statement said.
During the first quarter of 2025, REGA also processed 1,745 real estate reports and conducted over 23,746 electronic scanning operations, utilizing digital monitoring tools to review online channels and real estate platforms.
Real estate brokerage is defined as facilitating real estate transactions between parties in exchange for a commission, including through electronic means such as websites, social media platforms, and other digital tools.
Established in 2017, REGA works on regulating, supervising, and advancing non-governmental real estate activities, with a core objective of attracting investment to the sector in line with its overarching strategic vision.
The Kingdom’s real estate sector continues to draw international attention, with high-net-worth individuals from nine Muslim-majority countries preparing to commit $2 billion toward property purchases in Makkah and Madinah, according to a report released by Knight Frank earlier this month.
The findings showed that 84 percent of global HNWIs surveyed expressed interest in acquiring property in Saudi Arabia — with a clear preference for its two holy cities.
Nearly half, or 48 percent, of those respondents said they plan to use homes in Makkah as their main residence, pointing to a shift toward long-term occupancy rather than seasonal or purely investment-driven holdings.
