Pompey's lousy luck gets worse

WASHINGTON // With scarcely any sleep, in sweltering heat and after losing their kit, Portsmouth ended a farcical North American pre-season tour with a 4-0 drubbing at the hands of Major League Soccer's DC United. Relegated from the English Premier League, in administration and placed under a transfer embargo by England's football authorities, Portsmouth could scarcely field a team during their week-long tour of the United States and Canada, relying heavily on youngsters with little or no first-team experience.

But if anyone thought things could not get any worse for the embattled club, they were wrong. Stranded in Chicago by a lightning storm en route from their last game in Edmonton, Canada, the players had just four hours' sleep the night before Saturday's game with DC United and were not able to train for three days. As if that was not bad enough, 14 bags went missing during the journey, including the one containing their kit, meaning they had to play in a strip borrowed from their hosts.

They probably wished they had never arrived at all, after a thrashing at the hands of the MLS strugglers, which included a hat-trick by Danny Allsopp, the Australian striker "Probably that result summed up the tour for us really - it has been extremely tough," said Steve Cotterill, the Portsmouth manager. The journey from Edmonton had taken 27 hours. The trip from England to their first game in San Diego took 42.

"The time it took us to get here, we could have flown to Australia," an angry and frustrated Cotterill said after the game. The newly installed Pompey manager has made no secret of his frustration with the gruelling tour, organised before he took over. He would have preferred to have remained in England to try to assemble a squad for the approaching season. Two players went home injured after the Edmonton game, one with a broken leg.

Then, to add to Cotterill's woes, Jamie Ashdown, the goalkeeper who is trying to earn a new contract after the departure of David James, went off injured after colliding with a teammate during the Washington game. Pompey's weary players soon ran out of steam on the hottest day of the year in the US capital, with the temperature reaching 38C in the RFK Stadium. As if that was not bad enough, three players were sent off, including Portsmouth's Hayden Mullins, whose only offence was to get into an argument with DC United's Santino Quaranta, which Mullins admitted included "some swearing".

Quaranta then seemed to spit at Mullins and both men were shown straight red cards. Cotterill called the refereeing "ridiculous" and "appalling". "I can't believe he's been allowed to officiate a game," he said. "I've never seen anything like it in my life." It has been an astonishing fall from grace since Portsmouth won the FA Cup in 2008. After Saturday's defeat, the players were just relieved to be going home.

* Reuters

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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.”