The outdoor advertising company JCDecaux has won a 10-year contract to sell advertising at the new Al Maktoum International Airport at the heart of Dubai World Central (DWC).
Described as the region's first "aerotropolis", DWC is a planned residential, commercial and logistics complex.
JCDecaux, based in France and listed on the Euronext Paris exchange, will have exclusive rights to sell advertising at the new transport hub, it said.
DWC hopes Al Maktoum will be the world's largest airport when fully operational, with five runways and an expected passenger capacity of up to 160 million people a year.
The DWC advertising contract was won by JCDecaux's subsidiary JCDecaux Dicon.
"We are pleased to extend the partnership with JCDecaux Dicon to DWC," said Paul Griffiths, the chief executive of Dubai Airports.
In October, JCDecaux said another subsidiary JCDecaux ATA, a joint venture with the Saudi firm ATA, had entered into a 10-year contract for the exclusive advertising concession covering all 26 airports in Saudi Arabia. JCDecaux already holds the rights to sell advertising at the Dubai International Airport and Sharjah International Airport.
Aside from static advertising boards, the company has been installing digital units at airport terminals: during the summer's FIFA World Cup, JCDecaux showcased scores and clips of matches on screens at Dubai International.
In August, JCDecaux said it had signed a five-year advertising deal with HSBC for advertising on jet bridges - the docking connections between aircraft and an airport terminal building - at Dubai and Sharjah airports. The bank said the deal marked its "largest single media investment in the region".
Mark Mullen, the regional head of marketing at HSBC Middle East, said the company would "assess" the benefits of advertising at DWC.
"The UAE is a large and important market for HSBC and the success of its airports make them a strong platform from which to promote the HSBC brand to an international audience," Mr Mullen said. "We will assess DWC as an advertising medium in the same way we would any other."
Outdoor advertising was heavily hit during the recession, largely due to the withdrawal of marketing spending by property developers. According to the Pan Arab Research Centre, spending on outdoor advertising in the UAE was down by 6 per cent in the first six months of the year compared with the same period last year.
Hady Sassine, the regional head of the "out of home" department at the media agency MEC in Dubai, said advertising in airports was hit by the property downturn. But he said he had noticed a subsequent "recovery" in airport advertising: "I'm seeing a lot of advertisements - new clients are there," he said.
Mr Sassine, whose company buys advertising space from JCDecaux and others on behalf of its clients, said the success of the business at Al Maktoum would depend on passenger numbers.
"It's all about the traffic. When we have the numbers … then, based on that, I will propose it to my clients," he said. "It depends on whether the airport is doing well, and what airlines fly there."
Al Maktoum opened for cargo operations earlier this year, with passenger operations originally slated to commence in March next year. Mr Griffiths said this month the launch of the passenger services may be pushed back. "At the moment, we are reviewing the opening date and it looks as if it'll be later in the year," he told Reuters.
bflanagan@thenational.ae
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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.”
Difference between fractional ownership and timeshare
Although similar in its appearance, the concept of a fractional title deed is unlike that of a timeshare, which usually involves multiple investors buying “time” in a property whereby the owner has the right to occupation for a specified period of time in any year, as opposed to the actual real estate, said John Peacock, Head of Indirect Tax and Conveyancing, BSA Ahmad Bin Hezeem & Associates, a law firm.
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