(Reuters) -VF Corp on Tuesday appointed former Logitech boss Bracken Darrell as its new CEO, at a time when the footwear and apparel maker is struggling with sluggish demand for its Vans sneakers and Timberland boots.

Darrell stepped down as head of computer accessories maker Logitech International after a 10-year stint last week, and will take charge at VF on July 17.

At Logitech he was credited with a turnaround through faster launches of new products and improved design. Darrell has previously worked at Procter & Gamble, Whirlpool Corp and General Electric.

VF in May saw a 7% drop in fourth-quarter sales in the Americas region and projected annual revenue and profit below Wall Street estimates, as inflation-weary shoppers in North America cut back spending on apparel and other discretionary items.

The company’s former CEO Steve Rendle retired in December 2022, after nearly six years at the top job and about 25 years with the company, with lead independent director Benno Dorer named interim CEO.

Dorer will remain a board member, while interim chair Richard Carucci will assume the role permanently, VF Corp said.

(Reporting by Deborah Sophia and Juveria Tabassum in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila)

(Reuters) -Carlyle Group Inc named company veteran John Redett as its new chief financial officer, the investment firm said on Tuesday, in the first major appointment under Chief Executive Officer Harvey Schwartz’s leadership.

Redett, who will take over from Curt Buser on Oct. 1, joined Carlyle 16 years ago and currently leads the firm’s global financial services.

Redett, who previously worked for U.S. banking giants Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan, will also become the head of corporate strategy at Carlyle.

Buser will retire at the end of the year after being finance chief for nearly a decade, the company said in a filing.

Carlyle hired Schwartz, a former Goldman Sachs executive, as its chief executive officer earlier this year, after a six-month long search.

Carlyle also said it has also appointed Jim Burr as the head of global financial services.

In its latest first-quarter results Carlyle missed analyst estimates for distributable earnings owing to a sharp drop in income from asset sales in its private-equity portfolio.

(Reporting by Jaiveer Singh Shekhawat in Bengaluru; Editing by Nivedita Bhattacharjee and Shailesh Kuber)

By Joanna Plucinska and Valerie Insinna

PARIS (Reuters) -Ukraine is in negotiations with Western arms manufacturers to boost production of weapons, including drones, and could sign contracts in coming months, a Ukrainian minister told Reuters.

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year Ukraine has been scrambling to secure weapons ranging from munitions to rocket launchers to missiles. It has received support from countries such as the United States, Germany and Britain and Sergiy Boyev, deputy minister for Strategic Industries in Ukraine, said Kyiv was in talks with manufacturers from Germany, Italy, France and eastern Europe about them producing weapons in Ukraine itself.

“We are in very detailed discussions with them. And we are certain that we will have the contracts agreements signed within the next few months,” Boyev told Reuters on the sidelines of the Paris Airshow.

In May, Ukraine’s President Volodomyr Zelenskiy said the country was working with British defence company BAE Systems to set up a Ukrainian base to both produce and repair weapons from tanks to artillery.

No deal has been signed yet.

Germany’s Rheinmetall said last month it had set up a joint venture with Ukrainian state-owned conglomerate Ukroboronprom to build and repair tanks in Ukraine. Operations were expected to begin from mid-July.

“Ukraine needs this because vehicles get damaged, they need to get repaired, they come under fire,” CEO Armin Papperger told Reuters last week.

“We aim to help Ukraine so they can do the maintenance on their vehicles and produce spare parts themselves.”

In encouraging foreign defence firms to produce arms in Ukraine, Kyiv could more efficiently meet its own needs while also building up its defence industry to target global customers at a time when it’s looking to create jobs for Ukrainians.

“The future deterrence of aggression will require a strong defence industry in Ukraine, a strong Ukrainian armed forces,” Boyev said.

“That’s why we think international partners coming to Ukraine, setting up production and making Ukraine part of the security framework for the free world is so essential.”

But former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, a close ally of current President Vladimir Putin, has said Russia would retaliate by hitting any facility Rheinmetall set up in Ukraine.

“The decision should be greeted with salvos of Kalibr (cruise missiles) and other Russian pyrotechnic devices,” he said on his official channel on the Telegram messaging app in March after the first media reports of the investment.

DRONES

At the Paris Airshow on Monday, Boyev was courting dronemakers in particular, ranging from major international defence firms to small suppliers. He declined to say which companies he met with.

“We are discussing different levels of cooperation. And some of the companies say that they are willing to come and invest and produce drones,” he said.

Turkish defence company Baykar said late last year that it still planned to complete construction of a manufacturing plant in Ukraine in two years.

Baykar had announced plans to build the plant shortly before the Feb. 24, 2022 invasion of Ukraine by Russia.

Drones have been used extensively by both Moscow and Kyiv’s forces during the war. Kyiv says it is expanding its drone programme for both reconnaissance and attacking enemy targets over an increasing range.

Turkey, Norway and the United States are among the countries that have been supplying Ukraine with drones, but as the war intensifies more are needed.

Negotiations on producing drones could take longer, but Boyev said production in Ukraine could be an effective way to capitalise on the country’s existing drone expertise and create jobs in western and central Ukraine.

A senior European defence industry source, who did not wish to be identified, said that European rules and standards around drone testing could make it hard for companies to agree to produce and test drones in Ukraine.

But Boyev is hopeful that the country can attract foreign drone makers and said the Ukraine government could offer substantial support.

“We think that it’s just a matter of actually getting things done,” he said.

(Reporting by Joanna Plucinska and Valerie Insinna;Additional reporting by Olena Harmash in Kyiv, Andrew Osborn in London and Sabine Siebold in Berlin; Editing by Susan Fenton and Mark Potter)

CAIRO (Reuters) -The Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) is expected to leave its overnight interest rates unchanged on Thursday after President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi appeared to rule out any devaluation of the currency in coming months, a Reuters poll showed on Monday.

The median forecast in a poll of 17 analysts is for the bank to maintain its deposit rate at 18.25% and its lending rate at 19.25% when its regular monetary policy committee (MPC) meets. None of the analysts expected rates to change.

The MPC also left rates steady at its last meeting on May 18 despite surging inflation.

Annual urban inflation accelerated to 32.7% in May, just short of an all-time high, from 30.6% in April. Month-on-month, inflation jumped to 2.7% from 1.7% in April.

The president seemed to rule out a further currency devaluation anytime soon in remarks made to a youth conference last week, saying such a move could harm national security and hurt Egyptian citizens.

“The authorities seem keen to keep the currency steady for now, which removes a possible trigger for higher rates,” Noaman Khalid of NBK said.

The apparent shift away from policies agreed with the International Monetary Fund in December suggested Egypt would at least temporarily abandon other painful IMF prescriptions such as tightening interest rates, analysts have said.

(We) “expect the CBE to keep rates on hold given expected better FX liquidity in the short term and lower probability of another EGP devaluation,” Pascal Devaux of BNP Paribas said.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the central bank has allowed the Egyptian pound to lose half of its value against the dollar.

(Reporting by Patrick Werr; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

By Andrew Mills and Maha El Dahan

DOHA (Reuters) -Qatar on Tuesday secured its second large gas supply deal with a Chinese state-controlled company in less than a year, putting Asia clearly ahead in the race to secure gas supplies from Doha’s massive production expansion project.

China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) and QatarEnergy signed a 27-year agreement, under which China will purchase 4 million metric tons of liquefied natural gas (LNG) a year from the Gulf Arab state.

CNPC will also take an equity stake in the eastern expansion of Qatar’s North Field LNG project, QatarEnergy chief Saad al-Kaabi said at the signing.

The stake is the equivalent of 5% of one LNG train with capacity of 8 million metric tons a year.

“Today we are signing two agreements that will further enhance our strong relations with one of the most important gas markets in the world and key market for Qatari energy products,” Kaabi said.

In an identical deal, QatarEnergy sealed a 27-year supply agreement with China’s Sinopec in November for 4 million metric tons a year. The state-owned Chinese gas giant also took an equity stake equivalent to 5% of one LNG train of 8 million metric tons a year capacity.

Asia, with an appetite for long-term sales and purchase agreements, has outpaced Europe in locking in supply from Qatar’s two-phase expansion plan that will raise its liquefaction capacity to 126 million metric tons a year by 2027 from 77 million.

Tuesday’s deal will be QatarEnergy’s third deal to supply LNG from the expansion to an Asian buyer.

Other Asian buyers are also in talks for equity stakes in the expansion, Kaabi said.

DEALS WITH ‘VALUE-ADDED PARTNERS’

Qatar is the world’s top LNG exporter and competition for LNG has ramped up since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, with Europe in particular needing vast amounts to help replace Russian pipeline gas that used to make up almost 40% of the continent’s imports.

Reuters had earlier reported that CNPC was close to finalising a deal to buy LNG from QatarEnergy over nearly 30 years from the North Field expansion project.

QatarEnergy had previously said that it could give up to 5% stakes in the gas trains linked to its North Field expansion to what Kaabi, the Gulf state’s energy minister and CEO of QatarEnergy, described as “value-added partners”.

In April, China’s Sinopec became the first Asian energy company to become a “value-added” partner in the project.

QatarEnergy has also signed equity partnerships on the project with international oil companies but has said it plans to retain a 75% stake in the North Field expansion, which will cost at least $30 billion including construction of liquefaction export facilities.

As Beijing’s ties with the United States and Australia, Qatar’s two biggest LNG export rivals, are strained, Chinese national energy firms increasingly see Qatar as a safer target for resource investment.

The Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), the country’s $445 billion sovereign wealth fund, will manage most of the revenues from the North Field expansion,” Kaabi said.

“I think the majority of the revenue of what’s going to come from this North Field expansion will go into a future generation wealth fund in QIA … making sure that the Qatari people and people living in Qatar are well taken care of.”

(Reporting by Andrew Mills in Doha and Maha El Dahan in Dubai, additional reporting by Nayera Abdallah and Kanjyik Ghosh; Writing by Andrew Mills; Editing by Kim Coghill, Christopher Cushing and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)

(Reuters) -Energy company NiSource said on Tuesday it would sell a minority stake in its unit, NIPSCO, for $2.15 billion to asset manager Blackstone’s infrastructure unit.

The transaction will help Nisource cut debt and fund its transition towards renewable energy, the company said.

NIPSCO is an integrated electric- and gas-distribution unit that operates in Indiana and serves about 1.3 million customers.

Utility peers such as Duke Energy and FirstEnergy have also sold stakes in their subsidiaries this year as they seek to invest in cleaner sources of energy.

Blackstone Infrastructure Partners will acquire 19.9% of NIPSCO in a deal that values the Indiana-based unit at $10.8 billion.

The transaction is expected to close by the end of 2023.

(Reporting by Sourasis Bose in Bengaluru; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar and Vinay Dwivedi)