Sheikh Hazza bin Zayed, National Security Adviser and Vice Chairman of the Abu Dhabi Executive Council, opens the Birth of a Museum exhibition at Manarat Al Saadiyat, showcasing 130 artworks which will form part of the Louvre Abu Dhabi's permanent collection. Also present is the architect for the Abu Dhabi Louvre project, Jean Nouvel, and next to him on the far right, the French minister of culture, Aurelie Filippetti. Delores Johnson / The National
Sheikh Hazza bin Zayed, National Security Adviser and Vice Chairman of the Abu Dhabi Executive Council, opens the Birth of a Museum exhibition at Manarat Al Saadiyat, showcasing 130 artworks which wilShow more

First glimpse of Louvre Abu Dhabi's treasures



ABU DHABI // Art lovers had their first glimpse last night of the treasures that await when the eagerly anticipated Louvre Abu Dhabi opens its doors in 2015.
Birth of a Museum showcases 130 artworks from the museum's permanent collection. Officially opened by Sheikh Hazza bin Zayed, the National Security Adviser and Vice Chairman of Abu Dhabi Executive Council, it runs until July 20 at Manarat Al Saadiyat.
Among the guests were Jean-Luc Martinez, the new president-director of the Louvre in Paris, who was on his first international visit since assuming his new role, and the Pritzker Prize-winning architect Jean Nouvel, who designed the Louvre Abu Dhabi.
"This project is a very important one, the most important one," Mr Martinez said. "It's a great opportunity for France to do this museum here in such a country and I would like to thank this government for making this possible. It's really an honour for France and for my museum.
"It's just the beginning of an adventure between France and this country, but not only between France and this country. For all the world, I'm sure of that.
"The architectural project from Jean Nouvel, it's very, very impressive. We are sure that this museum will be one of the most impressive and amazing museums in the world - it's not only for the tourists, but for my profession too, we are building here a big step in the history of museums."
Mr Martinez hopes to visit Abu Dhabi every couple of months to speak to the team overseeing the project.
The architect Mr Nouvel said he was "really, really impressed" with the exhibition.
"This museum of civilisations will be the place of the dialogue between the civilisations and we have here the first testimony of that," he said.
Described as a universal museum, the Louvre Abu Dhabi's permanent collection spans civilisations from the ancient to the present and includes artefacts from all over the world, as well as contemporary artwork.
Rita Aoun-Abdo, the executive director of the culture sector of Abu Dhabi Tourism and Culture Authority, said the exhibition was "a very important milestone in the life of the project".
"In 2007, the UAE and France signed an intergovernmental agreement defining the creation of a universal museum that will present and will exhibit works of art from major periods, starting from archaeology to contemporary art, and from different geographic areas and without any boundaries of culture and civilisation.
"This was a very good vision and a very important one," she said.
"Today, the exhibition is really the translation of this vision. So when you enter the exhibition, you really have a tangible example of what the story and the narrative of the Louvre Abu Dhabi is about," Ms Aoun-Abdo said.
The Louvre Abu Dhabi will be joined by two others at the heart of Saadiyat Island's cultural district, with Guggenheim Abu Dhabi expected to open in 2017 and the Zayed National Museum in 2016.
Mubarak Al Muhairi, director general of Abu Dhabi Tourism and Culture Authority, said Birth of a Museum was only a taste of what the Louvre Abu Dhabi will be and what the future holds.
"This is a small exhibit of what the museum will be. The impact of the museum is not going to be felt now," he said.
"You feel like, 'Wow' . imagine the impact on society and people and the region when these museums are there. The moment of opening these doors, I always say, is going to start a new chapter.
"All of these questions of what will be there, what won't be there, all this will be forgotten once these museums are part of us and part of our society."
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The Sand Castle

Director: Matty Brown

Stars: Nadine Labaki, Ziad Bakri, Zain Al Rafeea, Riman Al Rafeea

Rating: 2.5/5

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Vidaamuyarchi

Director: Magizh Thirumeni

Stars: Ajith Kumar, Arjun Sarja, Trisha Krishnan, Regina Cassandra

Rating: 4/5

 

Set-jetting on the Emerald Isle

Other shows filmed in Ireland include: Vikings (County Wicklow), The Fall (Belfast), Line of Duty (Belfast), Penny Dreadful (Dublin), Ripper Street (Dublin), Krypton (Belfast)

Huroob Ezterari

Director: Ahmed Moussa

Starring: Ahmed El Sakka, Amir Karara, Ghada Adel and Moustafa Mohammed

Three stars

UAE squad

Ali Kashief, Salem Rashid, Khalifa Al Hammadi, Khalfan Mubarak, Ali Mabkhout, Omar Abdelrahman, Mohammed Al Attas (Al Jazira), Mohmmed Al Shamsi, Hamdan Al Kamali, Mohammad Barghash, Khalil Al Hammadi (Al Wahda), Khalid Eisa, Mohammed Shakir, Ahmed Barman, Bandar Al Ahbabi (Al Ain), Adel Al Hosani, Al Hassan Saleh, Majid Suroor (Sharjah), Waleed Abbas, Ismail Al Hammadi, Ahmed Khalil (Shabab Al Ahli Dubai) Habib Fardan, Tariq Ahmed, Mohammed Al Akbari (Al Nasr), Ali Saleh, Ali Salmeen (Al Wasl), Hassan Al Mahrami (Baniyas)

MATCH INFO

Rugby World Cup (all times UAE)

Third-place play-off: New Zealand v Wales, Friday, 1pm

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Price: From Dh330,000 (estimate)
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Citadel: Honey Bunny first episode

Directors: Raj & DK

Stars: Varun Dhawan, Samantha Ruth Prabhu, Kashvi Majmundar, Kay Kay Menon

Rating: 4/5

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Our family matters legal consultant

Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais

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

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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.”

TO A LAND UNKNOWN

Director: Mahdi Fleifel

Starring: Mahmoud Bakri, Aram Sabbah, Mohammad Alsurafa

Rating: 4.5/5

Retirement funds heavily invested in equities at a risky time

Pension funds in growing economies in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East have a sharply higher percentage of assets parked in stocks, just at a time when trade tensions threaten to derail markets.

Retirement money managers in 14 geographies now allocate 40 per cent of their assets to equities, an 8 percentage-point climb over the past five years, according to a Mercer survey released last week that canvassed government, corporate and mandatory pension funds with almost $5 trillion in assets under management. That compares with about 25 per cent for pension funds in Europe.

The escalating trade spat between the US and China has heightened fears that stocks are ripe for a downturn. With tensions mounting and outcomes driven more by politics than economics, the S&P 500 Index will be on course for a “full-scale bear market” without Federal Reserve interest-rate cuts, Citigroup’s global macro strategy team said earlier this week.

The increased allocation to equities by growth-market pension funds has come at the expense of fixed-income investments, which declined 11 percentage points over the five years, according to the survey.

Hong Kong funds have the highest exposure to equities at 66 per cent, although that’s been relatively stable over the period. Japan’s equity allocation jumped 13 percentage points while South Korea’s increased 8 percentage points.

The money managers are also directing a higher portion of their funds to assets outside of their home countries. On average, foreign stocks now account for 49 per cent of respondents’ equity investments, 4 percentage points higher than five years ago, while foreign fixed-income exposure climbed 7 percentage points to 23 per cent. Funds in Japan, South Korea, Malaysia and Taiwan are among those seeking greater diversification in stocks and fixed income.

• Bloomberg

THE BIO

Favourite book: ‘Purpose Driven Life’ by Rick Warren

Favourite travel destination: Switzerland

Hobbies: Travelling and following motivational speeches and speakers

Favourite place in UAE: Dubai Museum

Milestones on the road to union

1970

October 26: Bahrain withdraws from a proposal to create a federation of nine with the seven Trucial States and Qatar. 

December: Ahmed Al Suwaidi visits New York to discuss potential UN membership.

1971

March 1:  Alex Douglas Hume, Conservative foreign secretary confirms that Britain will leave the Gulf and “strongly supports” the creation of a Union of Arab Emirates.

July 12: Historic meeting at which Sheikh Zayed and Sheikh Rashid make a binding agreement to create what will become the UAE.

July 18: It is announced that the UAE will be formed from six emirates, with a proposed constitution signed. RAK is not yet part of the agreement.

August 6:  The fifth anniversary of Sheikh Zayed becoming Ruler of Abu Dhabi, with official celebrations deferred until later in the year.

August 15: Bahrain becomes independent.

September 3: Qatar becomes independent.

November 23-25: Meeting with Sheikh Zayed and Sheikh Rashid and senior British officials to fix December 2 as date of creation of the UAE.

November 29:  At 5.30pm Iranian forces seize the Greater and Lesser Tunbs by force.

November 30: Despite  a power sharing agreement, Tehran takes full control of Abu Musa. 

November 31: UK officials visit all six participating Emirates to formally end the Trucial States treaties

December 2: 11am, Dubai. New Supreme Council formally elects Sheikh Zayed as President. Treaty of Friendship signed with the UK. 11.30am. Flag raising ceremony at Union House and Al Manhal Palace in Abu Dhabi witnessed by Sheikh Khalifa, then Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi.

December 6: Arab League formally admits the UAE. The first British Ambassador presents his credentials to Sheikh Zayed.

December 9: UAE joins the United Nations.