Twenty years ago, I was the editor-in-chief of Visitor, a quarterly magazine published on behalf of the Lebanese ministry of tourism. I can't remember how I got the job, but I recall the previous editor was leaving and he suggested my name to a rather desperate owner (affectionately known as "the chief"), who had won the government contract after decades of doing business in West Africa. The idea was he would create the content and print the magazine and make money from advertising sales.
It seemed like a good idea. The chief presumed the ministry's backing would convince advertisers to place full-page ads, especially given that it had been hinted the magazine would be placed on Middle East Airlines, whose in-flight magazine – the perennially poor Cedarwings – charged top dollar for a full-page advertisement. Hotels, car hire companies, shops and the like were also in his cross hairs.
The first reality check was when Cedarwings pulled some serious strings to ensure Visitor never saw the inside of an Airbus. We didn't really take it too seriously and the feeling was this was just a misunderstanding that would eventually be resolved. To soften the blow, the chief was awarded another contract, for a business magazine that promoted Lebanon as a financial hub with mouthwatering investment opportunities, and the chief was assured all the top banks would advertise.
As with everything in Lebanon, nothing really pans out as expected. Ad sales were harder to come by than the chief imagined and to make matters worse, in the spring of 1996 we had a mini-war with Israel, Operation Grapes of Wrath, which, as you can imagine, hardly advanced our cause of selling Lebanon as a tourist Shangri-La.
But I will always have fond memories of Visitor. It was the first magazine I edited and the chief was a wonderful if somewhat stubborn boss. We also had some great writers knocking around Beirut, who would go on to much greater things in journalism, but who at the time were grateful for the work. They penned some great features on Lebanon and its culture.
One day, after working late, the chief drove me home. I asked him if he was happy with the content. “Of course,” he boomed – the chief always boomed even when he whispered – and went on to explain Lebanese tourism. I remember it like yesterday.
"The trouble is," he said, "no one will read our magazine. As a rule, we Arabs don't like reading and the vast majority of tourists who come to Lebanon are Arabs. They come here because we can give them what they can't get at home and – this is very important – we speak their language, we understand them and we flatter them and they like that. It's a very simple relationship. The articles you write are for the ajeneb, the foreigners. They will read what you and your friends write and then go to Baalbek, Tripoli, Jeita and the Qadisha Valley, but there aren't many of them. The Arabs want to eat and walk around and sleep and get good service." And by and large the chief was right. He wasn't right on everything, but on this he was on the money.
I thought of the chief and Visitor last week when I read in The Daily Star that Europeans topped the list of foreign tourists visiting Lebanon in June. Among them, the French apparently love us the most, followed by the Germans and the British. Americans and Canadians as a group came second and the Brazilians third.
In fourth place came the Arabs, with Iraqis cited as the most frequent visitors, followed by Jordanians and Egyptians. The number of Saudi Arabian nationals visiting Lebanon in June dropped by a whopping 47.71 per cent, no doubt a reflection of the current climate in which Gulf Arabs, who used to make up the vast majority of tourists, are following government travel advisories and staying away.
Visitor lasted four issues. I'm not sure about the banking magazine but I think it lasted a bit longer. The chief, who was in his 50s, got married, had a daughter and, if memory serves, went back to Africa. He called me a few years ago with another publishing idea and I, to my shame, palmed him off on a young American who had just landed and was, like me 20 years ago, looking for work.
In the meantime, let’s hope our new European visitors have something decent to read.
Michael Karam is a freelance writer who lives between Beirut and Brighton.
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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.
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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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