Economy

Big bang in publishing and the media in France. The biggest obstacle to the takeover of the Lagardère group (which owns Hachette, “Paris Match” etc.) by Vivendi has just been cleared by the latter since the European Commission, on Friday, gave a blank check under conditions to this operation . All that remains for Vivendi is to apply the remedies requested by Brussels for reasons of competition both in publishing and in the “people’s press” in France.

Clearly, the disposals by Vivendi of its Editis publishing division and of the Gala magazine are therefore finally accepted as remedies by the European competition services. “This is excellent news that opens an ambitious new chapter for our two groups,” said Arnaud de Puyfontaine, Chairman of the Vivendi Management Board.

Goldman Sachs said, on Friday, that the appointment of Mehmet Simsek as Turkish Minister of Treasury and Finance and “Hafizah Ghaya Arkan” as governor of the Central Bank indicates the new administration’s realization of the need to make monetary and financial adjustments.

And the bank said, amending a number of its expectations for Turkey, that the stability of the economy “will require a major adjustment, and we believe that it will take place in stages in the exchange rate.”

“In our view, this indicates that the traditional policy maker will raise interest rates to 40 percent,” Clemens Graf said in a note to the bank’s clients.

Once the exchange rate and inflation expectations are stable, Graf added, the interest rate might be lowered quickly, perhaps to 25 percent by the end of the year.

Goldman Sachs cut its forecast for Turkey’s gross domestic product growth to 2.3 percent year-on-year in 2023, down from 2.9 percent in a previous forecast.

The Turkish currency has been under great pressure since President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced the formation of his new government at the beginning of the week following winning a new presidential term, and its losses since the beginning of the year have reached nearly 19 percent.

The Turkish lira fell to a new record low once morest the dollar, last Wednesday, more than a week following the re-election of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, recording 22.98 liras to the US dollar.

The Turkish authorities succeeded in maintaining the stability of the lira for most of this year, consuming tens of billions of dollars of foreign reserves for this purpose.

Net foreign exchange reserves of the Central Bank of Turkey hit an all-time low of $4.4 billion on May 26

May.

(Archyde.com)

Activity remained at a stable level at the end of March 2023

Results

In the first quarter of the year, the Al Omrane Group started work on 300 new production units and 2,701 urban upgrading units.

Resilience at the rendezvous for the Al Omrane Group. The developer succeeded in its first quarter of 2023, despite the difficult national and sectoral economic context. This milestone is indeed marked by the sharp rise in raw materials and high inflation. And yet Al Omrane managed to maintain a stable level of activity. A performance driven by the Holding’s recovery plan as well as by the efforts made both operationally and commercially.

It appears to be in line with the group’s annual forecasts and strategic commitments. Al Omrane closed the first quarter of 2023 with a turnover of 714 million dirhams once morest 758 million dirhams a year earlier. “To support State policy and the actions carried out by the Ministry of National Territorial Development, Urban Planning, Housing and City Policy (MATNUHPV), the Al Omrane Group has multiplied its efforts, in line with its strategic commitments.

Thanks to the support of its institutional partners and the mobilization of its employees, the Group has started work on 300 new production units and 2,701 urban upgrading units,” says Al Omrane. And to add that “the Group has also made progress on the completion of its various projects, with 673 new production units and 5,642 units in urban upgrading”. On the balance sheet, the Al Omrane Group consolidates its financial structure with a slight decrease in its debt. Consolidated debt thus fell from 4.51 billion dirhams at the end of December 2022 to 4.37 billion dirhams at the end of March 2023.

The performance observed in the first quarter is a continuation of the achievements of the 2022 financial year. Indeed, Al Omrane ended the year with a turnover of 4.33 billion dirhams, up 6 % and a volume of 20,702 units. Housing starts for the 2022 financial year concerned 13,118 new units. The Holding has also completed the production of 17,781 units for the said financial year. For their part, deliveries are around 22,209 units. Thanks to the improvement in the product mix during this year, with high value-added projects, operating income improved in 2022 to stand at 394 million dirhams. Similarly, the various actions undertaken have made it possible to achieve a consolidated net result of 224 million dirhams.