Colombian author Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature and popularized the genre of magical realism, died on Thursday at the age of 87.
Here are some important dates in his life and career:
1927 - Garcia Marquez is born on March 6 in Aracataca, a backwater banana-growing town near Colombia's Caribbean coast. The oldest child of a large family, he spends part of his childhood living with his grandparents and is especially close to his grandfather, a retired army man who inspired the novel No One Writes to the Colonel.
1940 - Garcia Marquez moves to Barranquilla, a port city famous for its Carnival, to start high school.
1947 - He studies law at the National University in the Colombian capital Bogota and has two short stories published in the El Espectador newspaper.
1948-1950 - After riots force the National University to close and Garcia Marquez returns to Barranquilla, where he works as a reporter and starts writing his first novel, Leaf Storm.
1954 - Garcia Marquez works for El Espectador. His tale about a Colombian sailor who survived a high-seas shipwreck, published in installments, causes controversy in Colombia.
1955-1957 - Leaf Storm is published. He lives in Paris, publishing essays about his travels in communist eastern Europe.
1958 - Garcia Marquez marries Mercedes Barcha in Barranquilla. They remain married for the rest of his life.
1959 - Soon after Fidel Castro’s rise to power In a revolution, Garcia Marquez travels to Cuba on Castro’s invitation. They become close friends. Mercedes gives birth to the couple’s first son, Rodrigo.
1960-1961 - Garcia Marquez lives in Cuba for a short time, before moving the family to Mexico where he rubs shoulders with the country's literati, including author Carlos Fuentes. No one Writes to the Colonel is published.
1962-1966 - The couple's second son, Gonzalo, is born. Garcia Marquez writes several screenplays and works for publishers and advertising agencies. He spends nearly two years writing One Hundred Years of Solitude.
1967 - One Hundred Years of Solitude is published in June, earning Garcia Marquez recognition and accolades around the world. The family moves to Spain, staying until 1975.
1975-1976 - Autumn of the Patriarch, inspired by various Latin American dictators, is published. Garcia Marquez is punched in the face by Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa in a dispute that triggers endless speculation over why they fell out.
1979-1981 - He divides his time between Colombia and Mexico. During a trip to Europe, he meets Pope John Paul II. He begins work on Chronicle of a Death Foretold.
1982 - Garcia Marquez wins the Noble Prize for Literature.
1983-1987 - Love in the Time of Cholera is published, Chronicle of a Death Foretold is made into a film.
1989 - The General in his Labyrinth, about the final days of South American independence leader Simon Bolivar, is published.
1994 - Garcia Marquez establishes the Foundation for New Ibero-American Journalism to promote democracy and independent journalism in Latin America.
1996 - News of a Kidnapping, a non-fiction account of the kidnapping of several prominent figures in Colombia by drug lord Pablo Escobar is published.
1999 - Garcia Marquez battles lymphatic cancer, which goes into remission after chemotherapy treatment.
2002-2004 - He publishes his memoir Living to Tell the Tale in 2002. Two years later, Memories of My Melancholy Whores is released to mixed reviews.
2010-2012 - Garcia Marquez's editor says he is working on a new novel, titled We'll See Each Other in August. A younger brother, Jaime, says that the author is suffering from dementia and can no longer write.
2014 - Garcia Marquez dies at his home in Mexico City.
Leap of Faith
Michael J Mazarr
Public Affairs
Dh67
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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