Money Never Sleeps going into production was a sign that the banking crises was going to be a serious event.
Money Never Sleeps going into production was a sign that the banking crises was going to be a serious event.

Credit crunch art



The moment the banking crisis became really serious wasn't when Lehman Brothers went bust. It wasn't even when we all became au fait with subprime mortgages. It was when Oliver Stone called Michael Douglas and suggested they shoot a sequel to Wall Street, in which they could nail the terrible effects of casino capitalism. When this bombastic director wades into a debate - be that Vietnam, JFK, the World Trader Center attacks or George W Bush - you know things have just got worrying.

We jest, of course. But while Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps might not be a particularly adept reading of the credit crunch, the banking crisis of the past three years is proving particularly fertile ground for playwrights, directors and authors. But does this new work tell us anything we don't already know?

Certainly, we're consuming enough credit-crunch culture to suggest we are looking for some answers from our writers. This week, Alex Preston won the Edinburgh International Book Festival First Book Award for his novel This Bleeding City. Both a devastating look at the greed, excess and financial carnage of the City - as London's financial district is known - and an affecting love story, it's not quite the plea for sympathy for poor bankers one might expect from an ex-city trader.

"The thing is, bankers are generically awful people," he told me recently. "That image you get in literature of the cunning manipulator of finance, the great mind... very few are like that. It's full of strutting males, bright guys, for sure, but lured into that world by one thing: the money."

It's a fine read, but it will be interesting to see whether Preston's book stands the test of time. There's the suspicion that as much as credit-crunch culture holds a mirror to our world right now, it might seem terribly dated and irrelevant in years to come. That's certainly the impression one gets from the new play Crash by the Oscar-winning screenwriter William Nicholson, currently enjoying its first run at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds. While it skewers the emotional effects of the crisis on a banker and his middle-class friends, subtly implicating us all in the failures of the capitalist system, there's essentially no plot and barely any drama. It's simply a well-written play in which Nicholson plays out some of the arguments he's no doubt had with his friends. A revival in 2020 would seem unlikely.

Of course, art doesn't necessarily have to be lasting or timeless to be good. In 2009, the celebrated playwright David Hare was so spectacularly upfront about his take on the events of the past few years, The Power of Yes, he actually subtitled it "a dramatist seeks to understand the financial crisis". As a response to a commission by the National Theatre in London to "write an urgent and immediate work that sought to find out what had happened", it more than fulfilled its remit - although it was perhaps more journalism than drama. Did it change anything though? Of course not. It merely confirmed what most already knew - that the risk-taking on the markets was incompetent and deluded.

While The Power of Yes was wowing critics last year, Lucy Prebble's satirical take on American capitalism, Enron, was winning similar praise in the UK. And yet it spectacularly failed on Broadway this April - the New York Times called Enron "a flashy but laboured economics lesson" and it closed early. The suggestion was Americans didn't like Britons poking fun at them, but Prebble was always walking a tightrope between the inherently undramatic world of economic theory and the need to entertain. On Broadway she fell off.

So the reason Alex Preston's book has begun to win awards is obvious. The greed of the city might be the plausible backdrop, but it's the skilful way in which Preston handles the turbulent love story which lends This Bleeding City its dramatic tension. Perhaps that's the lesson any writer creating work from the financial crisis would do well to remember.

Formula Middle East Calendar (Formula Regional and Formula 4)
Round 1: January 17-19, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
 
Round 2: January 22-23, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
 
Round 3: February 7-9, Dubai Autodrome – Dubai
 
Round 4: February 14-16, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
 
Round 5: February 25-27, Jeddah Corniche Circuit – Saudi Arabia

 

Company: Instabug

Founded: 2013

Based: Egypt, Cairo

Sector: IT

Employees: 100

Stage: Series A

Investors: Flat6Labs, Accel, Y Combinator and angel investors

The specs

Engine: 3.0-litre 6-cyl turbo

Power: 435hp at 5,900rpm

Torque: 520Nm at 1,800-5,500rpm

Transmission: 9-speed auto

Price: from Dh498,542

On sale: now

The specs

Engine: 6.2-litre supercharged V8

Power: 712hp at 6,100rpm

Torque: 881Nm at 4,800rpm

Transmission: 8-speed auto

Fuel consumption: 19.6 l/100km

Price: Dh380,000

On sale: now 

West Indies v England ODI series:

West Indies squad: Jason Holder (c), Fabian Allen, Devendra Bishoo, Darren Bravo, Chris Gayle, Shimron Hetmyer, Shai Hope, Evin Lewis, Ashley Nurse, Keemo Paul, Nicholas Pooran, Rovman Powell, Kemar Roach, Oshane Thomas.

Fixtures:

1st ODI - February 20, Bridgetown

2nd ODI - February 22, Bridgetown

3rd ODI - February 25, St George's

4th ODI - February 27, St George's

5th ODI - March 2, Gros Islet

THE SPECS

Engine: AMG-enhanced 3.0L inline-6 turbo with EQ Boost and electric auxiliary compressor

Transmission: nine-speed automatic

Power: 429hp

Torque: 520Nm​​​​​​​

Price: Dh360,200 (starting)

Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.

Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.

Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.

“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.

Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.

From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.

Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.

BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.

Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.

Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.

“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.

“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.

“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”

The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”

The Brutalist

Director: Brady Corbet

Stars: Adrien Brody, Felicity Jones, Guy Pearce, Joe Alwyn

Rating: 3.5/5

Our family matters legal consultant

Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais

Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.

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MATCH INFO

Quarter-finals

Saturday (all times UAE)

England v Australia, 11.15am 
New Zealand v Ireland, 2.15pm

Sunday

Wales v France, 11.15am
Japan v South Africa, 2.15pm

The biog

Favourite films: Casablanca and Lawrence of Arabia

Favourite books: Start with Why by Simon Sinek and Good to be Great by Jim Collins

Favourite dish: Grilled fish

Inspiration: Sheikh Zayed's visionary leadership taught me to embrace new challenges.