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Kenya's Jelimo takes 800m gold

Kenyan Pamela Jelimo adds a golden lustre to her all-conquering season winning the women's Olympic 800 metres.

The Kenyan teenager Pamela Jelimo added a golden lustre to her all-conquering season when she won the women's Olympic 800 metres in style today. Jelimo, 18, who has been running the 800m less than a year, has ruled the races in the big European meetings this year and was in unstoppable form after hitting the front at halfway. She drove home to win easily in one minute 54.87 seconds ahead of team mate Janeth Jepkosgei Busienei, with Morocco's Hasna Benhassi taking bronze.

Jepkosgei, last year's world champion, led off a hard 55-second lap first, world record pace, but Jelimo took control on the second lap as she powered down the back stretch to put the race away. "I'm happy I managed it... I did my best, I didn't expect it to be so fast," she said. With her victory, Jelimo becomes the first Kenyan woman to win an Olympic athletics gold and some of her rivals expect her to attack the 25-year-old world record next.

"Look at her time, 1:54 is very, very fast, especially from someone who is 18 years old and I'm sure she will break the world record," former Olympic champion Maria Mutola of Mozambique said. The 800m world record of 1:53:28, set by Jarmila Kratochvilova of Czechoslovakia in 1983, is the oldest record in an Olympic track and field event. Notably absent from today's final was Russia's Yelena Soboleva, the fastest woman over the 800m this year, after she and six other Russian athletes were banned on the eve of the Olympics in what the International Olympic Committee said was a case of systematic doping.

If Soboleva's times are discounted, Jelimo ran the six fastest 800m races this year and is the only one to have breached 1:56. Her personal best in today's Olympic final makes her the sixth fastest two-lapper of all time and the fastest in 11 years. Jepkosgei, who also ran a personal best, was as happy with silver as Jelimo with gold. "For me, getting the silver was like winning the gold," Jepkosgei, said. "I think we did our best, that's what we wanted to do."

Mutola, the event's 2000 champion, who was competing in her sixth Olympics and fifth Olympic final, finished fifth in a season best in what she said would be her last year of competition. * Reuters

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.”

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Directors: Carol Mansour and Muna Khalidi

Stars: Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah

Rating: 4/5

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UAE’s fixtures: Fri Apr 20, UAE v Qatar; Sat Apr 21, UAE v Saudi Arabia; Mon Apr 23, UAE v Bahrain; Tue Apr 24, UAE v Maldives; Thu Apr 26, UAE v Kuwait

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UAE's role in anti-extremism recognised

General John Allen, President of the Brookings Institution research group, commended the role the UAE has played in the fight against terrorism and violent extremism.

He told a Globsec debate of the UAE’s "hugely outsized" role in the fight against Isis.

"It’s trite these days to say that any country punches above its weight, but in every possible way the Emirates did, both militarily, and very importantly, the UAE was extraordinarily helpful on getting to the issue of violent extremism," he said.

He also noted the impact that Hedayah, among others in the UAE, has played in addressing violent extremism.

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Day 5, Dubai Test: At a glance

Moment of the day Given the problems Sri Lanka have had in recent times, it was apt the winning catch was taken by Dinesh Chandimal. He is one of seven different captains Sri Lanka have had in just the past two years. He leads in understated fashion, but by example. His century in the first innings of this series set the shock win in motion.

Stat of the day This was the ninth Test Pakistan have lost in their past 11 matches, a run that started when they lost the final match of their three-Test series against West Indies in Sharjah last year. They have not drawn a match in almost two years and 19 matches, since they were held by England at the Zayed Cricket Stadium in Abu Dhabi in 2015.

The verdict Mickey Arthur basically acknowledged he had erred by basing Pakistan’s gameplan around three seam bowlers and asking for pitches with plenty of grass in Abu Dhabi and Sharjah. Why would Pakistan want to change the method that has treated them so well on these grounds in the past 10 years? It is unlikely Misbah-ul-Haq would have made the same mistake.