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Lebanon's Rafic Hariri International Airport in Beirut was put on a state of alert on Thursday night over suspicion that an aircraft carrying a delegation from Iran might contain funds intended for the Tehran-backed Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, local media reported.
Members of the delegation aboard the Iranian Air Mahan flight attempted to bar Lebanese security officials from searching the plane, according to the Lebanese daily An-Nahar.
"The Iranian delegation tried to prevent the plane from being searched because it was a diplomatic delegation," the newspaper reported, citing sources.
The situation became tense and more security personnel were called in before the plane and the delegation were searched. They did not find anything on the plane, it said.
Lebanon’s Interior Minister Bassem Mawlawi confirmed the incident in statements to MTV channel, saying “the Iranian Mahan Air plane was being searched bag by bag at Beirut airport”.
Later on Thursday, the Lebanese Foreign Ministry said in a statement that it had allowed two Iranian diplomatic bags into the country after receiving clarification from the Iranian embassy on their contents.
"The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates received a written explanatory note from the embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Lebanon regarding the contents of two small diplomatic bags carried by an Iranian diplomat on board a Mahan Air flight on January 2, 2025," the ministry said.
The ministry added that the bags contained documents, papers and banknotes to cover the operational expenses of the embassy only.
"Accordingly, the two bags were allowed to enter in accordance with the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 1967," it said.
Hezbollah, a Shiite movement that holds considerable sway in Lebanon's confessional political system, is a key part of Tehran's "Axis of Resistance" to Israeli and US influence in the Middle East, along with the Iran-backed militant group Hamas in Gaza and the Houthi rebel group in Yemen. However, Israeli attacks on Gaza, Lebanon, Iran and Yemen have considerably weakened the axis over the past year.
Israel's continuing war on Hamas, which led a deadly attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, has killed the group's leadership while laying waste to Gaza. Hezbollah, which began cross-border fire into northern Israel in support of Hamas a day after the attack, has lost its top leaders as well weapons stores in Israeli retaliatory strikes and a two-month campaign involving heavy bombing and a limited ground incursion into south Lebanon. The fighting ended in late November under a US-mediated ceasefire.
The overthrow last month of Syrian president Bashar Al Assad, who was propped up with military support from Hezbollah and Iran's Revolutionary Guard after civil war broke out in 2011, has also exposed Tehran's dwindling strategic leverage in the region. Iran's clerical rulers spent billions of dollars to support Mr Assad while using Syria as a crucial transit route to supply arms and funds to Hezbollah.
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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.”
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