“I eat, sleep, breathe Manchester City,” Bernard Halford said. It is scarcely an exaggeration. Just the second Life President in the club’s history joined his beloved Blues as club secretary in 1972. City had around 40 employees then. It is about 700 now. Halford has witnessed change and growth. It has accelerated in the last decade.
He remembers the catalytic evening in 2008, as Sheikh Mansour’s takeover of City became public knowledge. “We signed Robinho on deadline day,” he recalled. “At that time you faxed things [to the FA] and I was sending papers through at 10 to 12 because it all had to be done by 12. The fans were driving around the Etihad all beeping their horns.”
The Brazilian marked the beginning of a new era. “It was £32 million (Dh152.6m),” Halford added. “If someone had said in 2004-05 or any time up to the takeover that Manchester City was going to spend £32m on a player, you would have thought we would have to buy two teams for that. It was a mammoth thing.”
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He has seen transformation on and off the field. The Etihad Campus has brought a regeneration of east Manchester which Halford believes was much needed.
“This area was one of the most deprived in the country, Ancoats and Beswick and Bradford, with the poor standard of living and people out of work,” Halford said. “The Sheikh hasn’t just built a football team; he has made this area unbelievable”
Halford has focused on both the local and global impact of City’s success. “It used to be that Manchester United sold more shirts here in Manchester,” he explained. “I used to drive to work at Maine Road and count the shirts, how many were United and how many were City, as I was stopped at traffic lights. Now I go to schools and I see City shirts wherever I go.
“When we are on television, you get 500, 600, 700 million people watching Manchester City. Now, wherever we go in the world now, Manchester City’s name is with people.”
Halford is a survivor of the fallow period, the 35-year wait for a trophy that was ended in 2011, and the austerity era.
“You go through the traumas, now the City fans are actually seeing the best players in the world.
“I have got to have a business hat on at times as secretary but then you are a fan as well so you are mixing the two so for me it was like bread from heaven that we could bring players of that stature and ability to the club. It is utopia from a City perspective.”
Halford is 76 now. He first went to Maine Road as an eight-year-old. He remembers sitting on the terraces, buying a ticket for 1p to try and win the matchball. A better prize came later in life. Halford thinks back to the 2011 FA Cup final.
“On the day of the match, I get told, if we win the Cup, I am going up to receive it. The only person, other than a player or a manager, to lift the Cup at Wembley. I was 69 years old and I lifted the FA Cup with 90,000 people at Wembley. Can you imagine? I remember sitting watching Stanley Matthews [win it] in 1953. Fifty-eight years later, it’s Alice In Wonderland.”
And yet, he feels, it is very real. He remembers his first conversations with City’s new regime. Their promises have come true.
“What I was told was going to happen has happened,” he said. “It is growing bigger all the time.”
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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.”
The specs: 2019 Haval H6
Price, base: Dh69,900
Engine: 2.0-litre turbocharged four-cylinder
Transmission: Seven-speed automatic
Power: 197hp @ 5,500rpm
Torque: 315Nm @ 2,000rpm
Fuel economy, combined: 7.0L / 100km
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