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MerchantBridge
MerchantBridge & Co. Ltd. was a London-based boutique private equity firm that specialized in investments in the Middle East and especially Iraq, where it was one of the largest such firms. It was in existence from 2001 to 2018. Origins The firm was founded by Basil Al Rahim – who came from a wealthy Iraqi family and was a former executive for The Carlyle Group – in 2001, with a number of wealthy figures from Arab and Gulf countries as partners. (Its origins lay in an earlier private equity firm, Safron Advisors, which had been founded in 1998 and which covered the Middle East, North Africa and Turkey.) Within the next couple of years, MerchantBridge expanded into the areas of corporate finance and government advisory work. The firm sought to embody a foreign direct investment aspect as well. The firm's headquarters were on Sloane Street in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea within London. A number of prominent Britons became advisors to MerchantBridge, incl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
UnXis
Xinuos is an American software company that was created in 2011 and was first called UnXis until assuming its current name in 2013. (Both names have been variations on the spelling of the Unix operating system.) Xinuos develops and markets the Unix-based OpenServer 6, OpenServer 5, and UnixWare 7 operating systems under SCO branding, as well as the newer OpenServer 10 operating system. Background The SCO Group (SCO) was a Utah-based software company that had over time acquired the operating system products SCO OpenServer and UnixWare, which dated back to earlier companies The Santa Cruz Operation and Unix System Laboratories and to the early history of Unix before that. But by the late 1990s these products found themselves losing in the marketplace, first to Microsoft's Windows NT and Windows Server line and then to open source Linux. Beginning in 2003, the SCO Group began issuing proclamations and lawsuits, including ''SCO v. IBM'', based upon a belief that SCO Unix int ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The SCO Group
The SCO Group (often referred to SCO and later called The TSG Group) was an American software company in existence from 2002 to 2012 that became known for owning Unix operating system assets that had belonged to the Santa Cruz Operation (the original SCO), including the UnixWare and OpenServer technologies, and then, under CEO Darl McBride, pursuing a series of high-profile legal battles known as the SCO-Linux controversies. The SCO Group began in 2002 with a renaming of Caldera International, accompanied by McBride becoming CEO and a major change in business strategy and direction. The SCO brand was re-emphasized and new releases of UnixWare and OpenServer came out. The company also attempted some initiatives in the e-commerce space with the SCOBiz and SCOx programs. In 2003, the SCO Group claimed that the increasingly popular free Linux operating system contained substantial amounts of Unix code that IBM had improperly put there. The SCOsource division was created ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elizabeth Symons, Baroness Symons Of Vernham Dean
Elizabeth Conway Symons, Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean (born 14 April 1951) is a British politician and trade unionist. A member of the Labour Party, she was Minister of State for the Middle East from 2001 to 2005. She is former General Secretary of the FDA Trade Union and has served as the Chair of the Arab British Chamber of Commerce (ABCC) since 2010. Early life The daughter of Ernest Symons, Chairman of HM Board of Inland Revenue, Symons was educated at Putney High School for Girls and Girton College, Cambridge. She was an administration trainee at the Department of the Environment from 1974 to 1977. She then worked for the Inland Revenue Staff Federation from 1977 to 1989 and was General Secretary of the Association of First Division Civil Servants from 1989 to 1997. She resigned from this post following her appointment as a working peer. Political life Symons was created a Labour life peer as Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean, ''of Vernham Dean in the County of Ha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
2003 Invasion Of Iraq
The 2003 invasion of Iraq was a United States-led invasion of the Republic of Iraq and the first stage of the Iraq War. The invasion phase began on 19 March 2003 (air) and 20 March 2003 (ground) and lasted just over one month, including 26 days of major combat operations, in which a combined force of troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Poland invaded Iraq. Twenty-two days after the first day of the invasion, the capital city of Baghdad was captured by Coalition forces on 9 April 2003 after the six-day-long Battle of Baghdad. This early stage of the war formally ended on 1 May 2003 when U.S. President George W. Bush declared the "end of major combat operations" in his Mission Accomplished speech, after which the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) was established as the first of several successive transitional governments leading up to the first Iraqi parliamentary election in January 2005. U.S. military forces later remained in Iraq ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stephen Norris Capital Partners
Stephen L. Norris is one of the co-founders of The Carlyle Group, an American private equity firm and previously the Chairman of Gulf Capital Partners. He is a former member of the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board, who was appointed by President George H. W. Bush and confirmed by the United States Senate in 1990. In July 2014, it was announced he had joined the Florida-based company Global Digital Solutions. Corporate career Carlyle was founded in 1987 by five Washington executives: William E. Conway, Jr., Stephen L. Norris, David M. Rubenstein, Daniel A. D'Aniello and Greg Rosenbaum. Rosenbaum left in 1987; Norris left in 1995. The three remaining founders are reported to collectively own around a 50% interest in the group's general partnership. The rest of Carlyle is owned by a group of individuals, most of whom serve as managing directors, and by two institutional investors. Prior to co-founding the Carlyle Group, Norris was a senior executive at Marriott Corporat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gulf Cooperation Council
The Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf ( ar, مجلس التعاون لدول العربية الخليج ), also known as the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC; ar, مجلس التعاون الخليجي), is a regional, intergovernmental, political, and economic union comprising Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. The council's main headquarters is located in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia. The Charter of the GCC was signed on 25 May 1981, formally establishing the institution. All current member states are monarchies, including three constitutional monarchies (Qatar, Kuwait, and Bahrain), two absolute monarchies (Saudi Arabia and Oman), and one federal monarchy (the United Arab Emirates, which is composed of seven member states, each of which is an absolute monarchy with its own emir). There have been discussions regarding the future membership of Jordan, Morocco, and Yemen. During the Arab Spring in 2011, Saudi A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sectarian Violence In Iraq (2006–2008)
Sectarian violence in Iraq refers to the violence that developed as a result of rising sectarian tensions between the different religious and ethnic groups of Iraq, most notably the conflict between the Shi'i Muslim majority and the Sunni Muslim minority within the country. With the creation of a modern nation-state, sectarian tensions arose slowly and eventually developed into recent violent conflicts such as the War in Iraq (2013–2017) and the Iraqi Civil War (2006–2008). According to most sources, including the CIA's ''World Factbook'', the majority of Iraqis are Shi'i Arab Muslims amounting to around 64% to 69% of the population, whereas Sunni Muslims represent between 32% and 37% of the population. Furthermore, the Sunnis are split ethnically among Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen. Historical background Before the creation of the Iraqi state, Iraq's territory belonged to the Ottoman Empire and was divided up into three vilayets (provinces): Baghdad Vilayet (1869 - 1918), Bas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Iraqi Insurgency (2003–2006)
After the invasion of Iraq was completed and the regime of Saddam Hussein was toppled in May 2003, the Iraqi insurgency began. The 2003–2006 phase of the Iraqi insurgency lasted until early 2006, when it escalated from an insurgency to a civil war, which became the most violent phase of the Iraq War. Background Build up to insurgency A number of factors played into the beginning of the insurgency in Iraq. Invading U.S.-led forces were unable to immediately fill the power vacuum caused by the sudden collapse of a highly centralized state authority, resulting in weeks of virtual anarchy. Due to the fact that Saddam Hussein terrorized his military and time constraints in the planning of the invasion on the United States' side a power vacuum was created once the invasion started. This was due to the fact that Iraqi soldiers abandoned areas before U.S. forces could reach them and the fact that the United States failed to draw up plans on what to do once Saddam Hussein had been re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the List of Asian countries by area, fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the Arab world, and the largest in Western Asia and the Middle East. It is bordered by the Red Sea to the west; Jordan, Iraq, and Kuwait to the north; the Persian Gulf, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates to the east; Oman to the southeast; and Yemen to the south. Bahrain is an island country off the east coast. The Gulf of Aqaba in the northwest separates Saudi Arabia from Egypt. Saudi Arabia is the only country with a coastline along both the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, and most of its terrain consists of arid desert, lowland, steppe, and mountains. Its capital and List of cities and towns in Saudi Arabia, largest city is Riyadh. The country is home to Mecca and Medina, the two Holiest sites in Islam, holiest citi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Corporate Watch
Corporate Watch (The Corporate Watch Co-Operative Ltd.) is a research group based in the UK. It describes itself as a "research group that helps people stand up against corporations and capitalism." And as a "not-for-profit co-operative providing critical information on the social and environmental impacts of corporations and capitalism." It was established in 1996. Corporate Watch is run as a workers' co-operative. It is incorporated as a company, limited by guarantee, and registered in the United Kingdom, number 03865674. Research Corporate Watch has two main research approaches: * "Targeted research for grassroots campaign groups". For example, researchers have worked with neighbourhood housing campaigns, precarious workers' trade unions, environmental groups, migrant solidarity groups, care workers, and families of prisoners. This research can support campaigns by "e.g. profiling a particular company, digging into its accounts, uncovering scandals, finding weak points." * "Br ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rend Al-Rahim Francke
Rend al-Rahim Francke (born 1949) is an Iraqi political activist who often appears on various current affairs programs. She held the position as Iraqi ambassador to the United States. She is considered to be a secularist trying to enable Iraq to transition to a liberal democratic model. Personal life Francke was born in Baghdad to an affluent family and spent some of her childhood there. Her father is a Shiite Muslim and her mother is a Sunni Muslim. She went to boarding school in England and later studied at Cambridge University where she earned a master's degree in English and at the Sorbonne. She worked as a banker and a currency trader in Lebanon and Bahrain, as well as London. Her family moved to England in 1978 and later emigrated again, this time to the United States in 1981. She became an American citizen in 1987. Rend is married and has one child. Politics and advocacy In 1991, Francke established the Iraq Foundation in Washington, D.C., to lobby for democracy, h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Financial News
''Financial News'' is a financial newspaper and news website published in London. It is a weekly newspaper, published by eFinancial News Limited, covering the financial services sector through news, views and extensive people coverage. ''Financial News'' was founded in 1996. Financial News is owned by Dow Jones & Company, who acquired eFinancial News in 2007. It is part of the Dow Jones Media Group division, which also includes '' Barron's'', ''Factiva,'' ''MarketWatch'' and ''Mansion Global''. Financial News launched a revamped, mobile-first website and new weekly print edition in January 2017. Titles In addition to the publication of the Financial News, the company also operates ''FNLondon.com'', an updated daily website version of ''Financial News'', and ''The Private Equity News'', which provides daily news and analysis for Europe's private equity industry. ''The Private Equity News'' website is the counterpart to the weekly Private Equity News hard copy and was launche ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
