Former Barcelona star David Villa backs Guardiola to turn around City fortunes

MANHATTAN BEACH, California // Former Barcelona and Spain striker David Villa has backed Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola to overcome teething troubles and turn around the fortunes of the Premier League club.

Having enjoyed great success with Barcelona and Bayern Munich, Guardiola was brought in by City to take the club into the European elite but so far the Spaniard is struggling to compete on the domestic front.

City were hammered 4-0 by Everton on Sunday and have slipped to fifth in the Premier League, 10 points adrift of leaders Chelsea.

Villa, who now plays in Major League Soccer with New York City FC, kept faith with the manager under whom he won the Spanish league twice and the 2011 Champions League with Barca.

“He has a difficult period right now but I believe he will change the situation,” Villa told Reuters television in an interview.

“[It] is normal to have a difficult period with the team, but he is great and I think he has a methodology and he has a very good coaching staff to change the situation and the future [at City] will be better for sure,” the 35-year-old striker said.

“Soccer is difficult in every country and I am so lucky that I was able to play for Guardiola. He is a great coach, for everyone who likes soccer. But in soccer it is difficult to win and he has almost always won. His statistics are amazing,” Villa added.

Guardiola won three Spanish league titles and two Champions Leagues with Barca and won the Bundesliga in all three seasons at Bayern.

Villa, who scored 59 goals for Spain in 97 appearances, credited Guardiola with making him into a better all-round player.

“I was lucky to train under him. When I arrived at Barcelona I had always played as a No 9 and when I played with him he changed my position and my mentality and after that I think I was a better player.

“I was able to understand more about different positions on the field and not only about scoring goals. He was great for my career,” he said.

Villa was voted MLS’s Most Valuable Player in 2016 after scoring 22 goals in 32 games for his New York club.

New York City FC share the same owners as Manchester City, the Abu Dhabi-owned City Football Group who also run Australian club Melbourne City and has a minority holding in Japanese J-League club Yokohama F-Marinos.

* Reuters

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Leap of Faith

Michael J Mazarr

Public Affairs

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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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Former Barcelona star David Villa backs Guardiola to turn around City fortunes

Spanish forward, who now plays in Major League Soccer, keeps faith with manager under whom he won Spanish league twice and 2011 Uefa Champions League with Barca.

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