World

SOME of the liquefied natural gas industry’s biggest companies are skipping a key conference in Qatar as regional security concerns persist amid US-Iran nuclear talks anticipated this week.

Several Japanese buyers opted not to take part. Tokyo Gas Co. decided not to attend the LNG 2026 conference taking place in Doha due to safety considerations, according to the company spokesperson on Monday. Osaka Gas Co. and Saibu Gas Holdings Co. made the same decision for similar reasons, company spokespeople said.

US President Donald Trump said he anticipates talks with Iran in the coming days, while Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian ordered negotiations with Washington to begin “within the framework of the nuclear issue.” The moves underscore broader international efforts to ease tensions in the Middle East as Trump warns of possible military action if Tehran fails to reach an agreement to curb its nuclear program.

The LNG industry gathering is scheduled for Feb. 2-5, with about 16,000 trade visitors and 4,000 conference delegates expected, according to the event’s website. Speakers include Global Chief Executive Officer and Chair of Jera Co. Yukio Kani, President of QatarEnergy Saad Bin Sherida Al-Kaabi and executives from oil majors like ExxonMobil Corp., Shell Plc and ConocoPhillips.

Several European LNG importers, along with at least one supplier, will not attend the conference or are sending smaller delegations, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

Commonwealth LNG, which is developing a US export project, canceled its reception during the conference and cut back on its delegates, the people said, who asked not to be named as they aren’t authorized to speak to the media. The company declined to comment.

Venture Global Inc., a major US LNG supplier, will have a reduced presence at the conference “due to security concerns in the region and out of an abundance of caution,” it said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Japan’s biggest utility Jera is postponing or canceling non-essential travel to the Middle East as a general rule, with safety measures to be put in place should any travel occur, a spokesperson said. Japanese trading house Sumitomo Corp. is attending the conference but has reduced the size of its delegation due to safety concerns, according to a spokesperson. —BLOOMBERG

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NEW DELHI — Bangladesh’s ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina was on Monday handed a 10-year jail term in a corruption case, while her British lawmaker niece Tulip Siddiq was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment.

A court found them guilty in two separate cases over irregularities in the allocation of two land plots under the RAJUK New Town Project near Dhaka, local media reported.

Judge Robiul Alam of Dhaka’s Special Judge Court-4 also sentenced Tulip’s sister Azmina Siddiq and brother Radwan Mujib Siddiq to seven years in jail each, in one of the cases.

The verdicts came in the midst of an election campaign for Bangladesh’s first parliamentary elections since Hasina resigned and fled to India in August 2024.

Hasina’s Awami League is barred from participating in the Feb 12 election in which the main contenders are the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and a multi-party alliance led by the National Citizen Party (NCP) and the Jamaat-e-Islami.

Hasina is facing hundreds of cases related to the 2024 mass uprising, during which 1,400 people were killed and thousands others injured.

Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal last year sentenced her to death on charges of crimes against humanity. — BERNAMA

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MAKKAH — The Muslim World League (MWL) has renewed its call for urgent action against Israeli violations of the Gaza ceasefire, which have resulted in over a thousand Palestinian casualties, Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported.

In a statement, Secretary-General of the MWL and Chairman of the Organisation of Muslim Scholars Sheikh Dr Mohammed Al-Issa emphasised the need to compel the Israeli government to comply with the second phase of the peace plan proposed by US President Donald Trump.

This includes an immediate ceasefire and the unhindered delivery of humanitarian aid.

Al-Issa also praised the recent statement by the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia and several Islamic and Arab nations condemning Israeli violations. They warned that these actions escalate tensions and jeopardise regional and international efforts to implement the peace plan and United Nations Security Council Resolution 2803.

These efforts aim to end ongoing violence and establish a just and lasting peace in line with international resolutions and the New York Declaration on the Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine and the Implementation of the Two-State Solution. — BERNAMA-SPA

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FROM hedge funds to homemakers, the leverage-loving Chinese traders behind gold’s record rally are now nursing big losses after one of the fastest market reversals in years.

For Merry Chen, a 42-year-old homemaker in Hangzhou, the foray into precious metals lasted less than a week. With no prior experience in derivatives, Chen opened a futures account last Monday on the advice of friends.

The initial results were promising: she gained 60% on her 1 million yuan ($144,000) investment in just 48 hours. But Friday’s sharp drop wiped out those gains and triggered a forced liquidation, leaving her with a 750,000 yuan loss, down 84% from the peak.   

“I never imagined it could be this intense,” said Chen, who plans to close her account. “It felt like a trip to a casino in Macau.”

Chen’s losses are emblematic of speculators who had piled into precious metals before the Friday crash triggered widespread losses and forced liquidations of leveraged futures positions. While part of the trigger was the nomination of Kevin Warsh to lead the US Federal Reserve, which sent the dollar higher, many had long warned the metals markets were too overstretched.

Spot gold fell as much as 10% on Monday, and is down almost a fifth from an all-time high. Silver plunged as much as 16%, following a record intraday loss in the previous session.

The sharp reversal gave trend-following commodity trading advisor models at Chinese quantitative hedge funds — which typically hold commodities for 3 to 20 days — scarcely any time to adjust, according to Lv Chengtao, a partner at SHQX Asset Management. That came as non-ferrous and energy futures have also retreated, he said.

As a result, many CTA managers’ net asset values would likely have been under pressure Friday and Monday, he said.

Since such CTA holdings are often spread across a wide array of commodities and their leverage is typically lower than 300%, the drawdowns since Friday have been controllable so far, sparing most of them from forced liquidations, he said.

Still, some such funds suffered drawdowns of more than 10%, according to an executive with a Shanghai-based quantitative fund, whose firm cut most of its precious-metal futures positions last week to limit losses. He asked not be named discussing a private matter. 

The decline is coming ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday, when CTAs tend to cut positions by 30%-50% to reduce risks because offshore trading continues during the week-long break, and that process of reductions has started already, according to a Shanghai-based quant fund.

Chinese banks also took measures last week to limit risks for retail investors in gold-accumulation products. Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd. and China Construction Bank Corp. were among those that plan to either raise the minimum deposit amount or implement quota controls.

The gold rally has been building for a number of years as central banks expanded their holdings as an alternative to the dollar. It accelerated in 2025 as global investors piled into the so-called debasement trade. Chinese speculators, including individual investors and large funds venturing into commodities, added more fuel to the gains in recent weeks.

One of China’s most well-know investors exited the trade in December. Shanghai Banxia Investment Management Center, a macro hedge fund managing more than 5 billion yuan, sold all its gold holdings in December, even as the asset is expected to hover at elevated levels rather than falling significantly, according to founder Li Bei.

Central banks including Russia’s have been selling gold, and the metal’s price is overvalued compared to its long-term equilibrium level, she said in an interview with the Securities Times’ Wechat account late last month. The opportunity costs of holding gold are very high, she said, citing a potential bull run of Chinese blue chip stocks.

With concerns over the independence of the Fed and geopolitical unrest from Venezuela to Iran making headlines, the gains in metals had become a symbol of growing distrust among investors in the US dollar.

“There’s a simple logic to it,” said Jeff, a freelance investor from Hangzhou who said his holdings of spot and physical gold accumulated over the years are now worth about $1.5 million. “The world is chaotic, so buy some gold.”

He was cautious enough not to trade leveraged gold futures, and felt even more convinced after his escape before silver’s record plunge on Friday. He invested about $500,000 in silver futures contracts and dumped all at $110 an ounce last week, yielding a 100% return.

Now, he’s looking for an opportunity to buy in for the long run, betting demand for precious metals will be underpinned by prospects of a weaker dollar, the China-US rivalry, as well as developments in artificial intelligence.

Beyond Comprehension

Charles Wang, a fund manager in Shanghai, is looking at gold stock exchange-traded funds for buying opportunities. He personally invested about 3 million yuan in gold futures earlier, with three-times leverage, before selling his holding at around $3,500 an ounce and making a 30% return.

“I couldn’t wrap my head around it, so I decided to sell,” Wang said.

He bought some gold stock ETFs on Monday for products he manages, and he can gauge gold miners’ earnings prospects based on average metal prices of the past year rather than fixating on short-term price swings of the commodity.

More are adopting a cautious approach. Lu, who runs a 200 million yuan CTA fund in China, said that before the recent rally in gold, his fund gradually liquidated its positions.

“Anything above $4,800 is beyond my comprehension, hence not money I should earn,” said Lu, who asked that only his last name be used. “I’m in no hurry to jump in the market. It’s still a gambling-driven market right now, not an investment-oriented one.” —BLOOMBERG

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GIC Pte and Mubadala Investment Co. are in talks to join KKR & Co. and Singapore Telecommunications Ltd. in their potential purchase of data center operator STT GDC Pte, people familiar with the matter said, in what could be one of the biggest digital infrastructure deals in recent months.

The sovereign wealth funds from Singapore and Abu Dhabi are set to back the KKR-led transaction as minority co-investors, the people said, asking not to be identified because the deliberations are private. A potential deal may value STT GDC at more than $10 billion including debt, the people said. 

The firms are hammering out details of a transaction that could be announced as soon as this week, they said.

KKR and Singtel are existing investors in STT GDC after paying $1.3 billion for a minority stake in 2025. Raising that holding would support Singtel’s efforts to make artificial-intelligence ready data centers a core growth engine, said Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Chris Muckensturm.

Singtel shares rose as much as 2.6% Monday, before paring the gains to 1.1%. The company has a market value of $60 billion.

Dow Jones reported on Sunday that a KKR-led consortium including Singtel was nearing a deal for STT GDC. Singtel said in an exchange filing following the report that it is in advanced discussions regarding the data center company but there’s no certainty of any definitive or binding agreement.

Representatives for GIC and Mubadala declined to comment. KKR and ST Telemedia didn’t respond to requests for comment.

STT GDC’s parent is ST Telemedia, which is backed by Singapore state investor Temasek Holdings Pte, owner of half of Singtel.

KKR and Singtel have been in talks with banks for a loan of around S$5 billion ($3.9 billion) to support the transaction, Bloomberg News reported in November, about four months after discussions between the firms emerged.

Based in Singapore, STT GDC is one of Asia’s largest data center operators with more than 100 such facilities across 20 markets including India, South Korea, Japan and Malaysia. It also has a presence in the UK, Italy and Germany. The company provides services such as co-location, connectivity and support.

Data centers are attracting a lot of investor interest, not least because of their role in the artificial intelligence boom. Investors led by BlackRock Inc.’s Global Infrastructure Partners agreed to buy Aligned Data Centers in a $40 billion deal in October. Just before year end, SoftBank Group Corp. agreed to acquire private equity firm DigitalBridge Group Inc. for about $3 billion in cash.

Still, some concerns have been brewing about the high levels of spending in AI infrastructure. Last week, people familiar with the matter said that SoftBank has halted talks about an acquisition of US data center operator Switch Inc., a setback to founder Masayoshi Son’s ambition to roll out Stargate AI infrastructure. –BLOOMBERG

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THE World Health Organization has been forced to slash its staff after the US and Argentina decided to pull funding, Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Monday, characterizing 2025 as “one of our most difficult years.”

The Geneva-based organization lost its top donor with hundreds of millions of dollars in annual funding when the US completed its withdrawal last month. Argentina has also announced its intention to withdraw from the WHO, with the exit expected to take effect in February.

The cuts are already having a severe impact in countries where the WHO supports public health systems, including vaccination programs and outbreak response, Tedros said. He warned that the strain is coming as the world braces for a projected shortage of 11 million health workers by 2030.

The WHO is shedding about 25% of its workforce by mid-2026, according to a recent report by the body. The organization had 9,457 employees at the end of 2024, its highest headcount in 15 years.

Still, Tedros struck a more positive note for the year ahead, saying the WHO would be focused on recovery rather than belt-tightening. 

“2026 will not be about austerity but restore,” he said, adding that “the people of this organization continue to serve the world” despite the funding shock and deep staffing cuts.

The WHO’s executive board is holding its 158th session this week, with governments reviewing priorities that range from health emergencies and antimicrobial resistance to budgets, governance and digital health. Over six days, diplomats will spar over politically sensitive issues and set the agenda for bigger decisions later this year.

Those early signals will feed into May’s World Health Assembly, where countries must decide how much money and authority to give the WHO as it responds to crises and reshapes its role. Whether this week produces momentum or gridlock will help determine if those talks end in compromise or confrontation. –BLOOMBERG

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PRESIDENT Donald Trump is set to launch a strategic critical-minerals stockpile with $12 billion in seed money, a bid to insulate manufacturers from supply shocks as the US works to slash its reliance on Chinese rare earths and other metals. 

The venture — dubbed Project Vault — is set to marry $1.67 billion in private capital with a $10 billion loan from the US Export-Import Bank to procure and store the minerals for automakers, tech firms and other manufacturers. 

Details of the initiative, which would represent a first-of-its-kind stockpile for the US private sector, were described by senior administration officials, who asked not to be identified discussing a plan that has yet to be announced.

The effort is akin to the nation’s existing emergency oil stockpile. But instead of crude, its focus would be minerals — such as gallium and cobalt — used in products such as iPhones, batteries and jet engines. The stockpile is expected to include both rare earths and critical minerals as well as other strategically important elements that are subject to volatile prices.

It represents a major commitment to accumulate minerals deemed critical to the industrial economy — including the automotive, aerospace and energy sectors — and highlights Trump’s effort to wean US supply chains from China, the world’s dominant provider and processor of critical minerals. 

The project has participation from more than a dozen companies so far, including General Motors Co., Stellantis NV, Boeing Co., Corning Inc., GE Vernova Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google. Three commodities trading houses — Hartree Partners LP, Traxys North America LLC and Mercuria Energy Group Ltd. — have signed on to handle purchases of the raw materials to fill the stockpile. 

Ex-Im’s board is set to vote later Monday to authorize the record-setting 15-year loan, which is more than double the next-largest deal ever executed by the bank. 

Trump is set to meet Monday with GM’s chief executive officer Mary Barra and mining billionaire Robert Friedland, who represent both producers and users of critical minerals. 

The US already operates a national stockpile of critical minerals to serve the nation’s defense-industrial base but doesn’t have a stockpile for civilian needs. Under Trump, the US also has taken the rare step of investing directly in domestic minerals companies to boost the production and processing of rare earths at home. 

The administration has already inked cooperation agreements with Australia, Japan, Malaysia and other countries on the issue. It will press even more nations to pursue such pacts during a summit of dozens of countries set to take place in Washington on Wednesday.

The effort to reduce risk in the mineral supply chain gained new momentum last year, after China tightened export controls on some materials. That spurred some US manufacturers to dial back production and underscored the extent of Beijing’s leverage. 

The new venture will offer participating manufacturers a way to insulate their businesses from swings in prices for key materials without having to maintain their own stockpiles.

Those types of swings can expose companies to massive volatility in key raw material inputs that wreak havoc on balance sheets. For example, nickel saw a historic price surge shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine, fed by fears buyers would no longer be able to purchase the metal from Russia, a top supplier. 

Some details about Project Vault’s structure were not immediately known, including the institutional investors providing the $1.67 billion. The senior administration officials said the project had been oversubscribed because investors are attracted by a credit-worthy group of manufacturers, their long-term commitments and the involvement of the US export-credit agency. 

The specific carrying costs that would be charged to those manufacturers, as well as the fees for the trading firms participating as procurement officers, weren’t disclosed. 

Under the arrangement, companies that make an initial commitment to purchase materials at a specified inventory price later — and pay some up-front fees — will be able to present Project Vault with a shopping list of preferred materials they need. 

The project, in turn, will seek to procure and store the materials, with the manufacturers charged a carrying cost for the expenses associated with interest on the loan and holding the elements. 

Manufacturers will be allowed to draw down their material stash as long as the firms replenish them. In the case of a major supply disruption, they will be able to access all of it, the officials said. 

A key element in the venture’s design is that manufacturers who commit to buy a specified amount of materials at a set price also commit to repurchase the same amount at that same cost in the future. The administration sees that acting as a stabilizing mechanism, helping suppress volatility. —BLOOMBERG

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IN A matter of months, Saudi Arabia has frozen rents, opened property ownership to foreigners, relaxed liquor laws and freed its stock market to investors everywhere.

The moves have come as Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman seeks to turn the nation into an investment destination and better compete with nearby Dubai. They also hint at how the Gulf nation is trying to address oil-price volatility and budget deficits that threaten to slow progress on its $2 trillion economic diversification plan.

More foreign cash would help companies expand, drive infrastructure financing and ease the government’s investment burden. More critically, though, it could alleviate financial pressure.

Saudi Arabia has been in fiscal shortfall since 2022 as revenues trail spending, and it has run a current account deficit for five consecutive quarters. That has prompted more aggressive borrowing and a further pullback at so-called mega-projects. Slower credit growth is also adding to the squeeze.

“Fiscal and current account deficits and pressure on domestic funding mean the country needs FDI,” said Monica Malik, chief economist at Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank.

The recent rise in oil prices — Brent briefly topped $70 a barrel last week for the first time in months — followed by the plunge on Monday shows how quickly Saudi fortunes could turn. At the same time, the geopolitical tensions between the US and Iran that have stoked price swings may crimp the Middle East’s attraction as an investment destination. And crude prices remain far below the almost-$100 that Bloomberg Economics estimates is needed for the kingdom to balance its budget.

With around 35 million people, mostly under 35, and a $1 trillion sovereign wealth fund, Saudi Arabia’s potential for further growth has already captured global attention. But it needs to come up with more capital to diversify its economy, from tourism to tech and mining. 

Its goal is to bring in $47 billion in foreign direct investment this year and almost $60 billion in 2027. That compares with $32 billion in 2024, the last full year for which data is available, and one of its best hauls ever.

Net FDI inflows that account for disinvestments paint a less rosy picture — they’ve been in decline since 2022, according to the World Bank. The kingdom also last week announced a new privatization strategy to draw more than $64 billion in private capital investment by 2030.

“Attracting FDI is the critical issue,” said Mohamed Abu Basha, head of macroeconomic analysis at investment bank EFG Hermes. “It has been the main lacking piece in the story.”

Saudi regulators are now liberalizing the country’s $2.6 trillion stock market. Direct trading on the Tadawul All Share Index opened to all non-Saudis on Feb. 1, after being limited to those that met criteria like having $500 million in assets under management. The benchmark rose about 1% on Monday as global trading resumed after the weekend.

Now, investors are awaiting changes that would allow foreigners to take majority stakes in local companies, which could unlock $10 billion in fresh inflows, according to Wall Street firms including Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

“Any clarity on what’s next for the foreign ownership limits will be positively perceived by the market and then it will come down to the substance and the details,” said Fadi Arbid, founding partner at Amwal Capital Partners. “We could see far more foreign interest.”

Last month, the Saudis also allowed foreigners to own a wider range of real estate assets, including in the holy cities of Mecca and Madinah. Those sites have historically been closed to outsiders but are among the most coveted areas for ownership, in part due to a boom in religious tourism.

Back in Riyadh, where the city of 8 million still lacks enough housing, offices and schools, there are signs international firms are already swooping in.

The Trump Organization kicked off sales at $10 billion worth of Saudi projects last month to capitalize on the new rules, making it one of the most prominent foreign developers to date to enter the market. The projects are among several that US President Donald Trump’s business empire is pursuing, raising concerns about potential conflicts of interest.

“Saudi Arabia has become a developer’s playground,” Eric Trump, executive vice president of the Trump Organization, said in an interview in Riyadh. “They want you to go big. They want you to reach the heavens. And they need the investment.”

The rollout hasn’t been without snags. Saudi Arabia was expected to release details of where exactly foreigners can own property in January but said that information will now land during the first quarter.

In the last few years, there have also been updates to laws around investment, bankruptcy and disputes — though few have been tried and tested widely in the courts.

“Continuity of Saudi investment growth may ultimately depend on how effectively policy is integrated, implemented and communicated to the market,” said Said El-Saadi, chief executive officer of Access KSA, a Saudi-based adviser to foreign businesses.

Investors, analysts and economists also often note the need for more clarity on Saudi Arabia’s spending plans and how it’s recalibrating its priorities and projects.

For now, the nation continues to lag the United Arab Emirates, which has become a magnet for hedge funds, Wall Street giants and major corporations alike.

Riyadh suffers in comparison to Dubai, in particular, when it comes to its appeal as a place to live and work due to limited housing and schooling, along with lingering social restrictions, traffic congestion and a disruptive construction spree. 

Late last year, the kingdom began allowing high-earning residents to buy alcohol, Bloomberg has reported, while freezing rents for five years in a bid to boost its attraction.

Whether the flurry of reforms will be enough to help address current fiscal challenges remains unclear.

“Over the long haul money will come here,” Richard Miller, group managing director and chief investment officer at asset manager TCW Group Inc.’s private credit group, said in an interview in Riyadh. “It’s maybe not going to go from here to there as fast they want it to but there’s no way it doesn’t eventually get there.” –BLOOMBERG

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