MUMBAI // Former Miss World turned actress Aishwarya Rai Bachchan is pregnant, her father-in-law and veteran Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan has revealed.
"News news news!! I am going to become a grandfather ... Aishwarya expecting ... so happy and thrilled!!!," Bachchan wrote on his Twitter page late on Tuesday.
Aishwarya Rai, 37, married Bachchan's actor son Abhishek, 35, in April, 2007. The child will be their first and comes after weeks of speculation in Indian gossip columns about the actress' fluctuating weight.
Bachchan senior later said on the micro-blogging site that he was "overwhelmed" with the response to the news from followers and had received 2,843 tweets of congratulation in just half an hour.
Writing on his blog bigb.bigadda.com, he said: "There is joy and happiness around us."
There was no immediate indication when the baby was due.
The Bachchans -- Amitabh, his actress wife Jaya, Aishwarya and Abhishek -- are Bollywood's "first family" and have a fanatical following in India and around the world. His daughter, Shweta Nanda, has two children.
The family patriarch said he was particularly pleased with the news because "now cometh the progeny of my son that shall bear the surname Bachchan - the first in this generation...".
The family boycotted the annual Filmfare magazine awards in 2010 after a tabloid newspaper in Mumbai wrote that Rai could not have children, prompting a legal notice to be sent demanding a retraction and an apology.
Rai, who took the Miss World crown in 1994, made her debut in Hindi-language Bollywood in the late 1990s and has gone on to star in more than 40 Indian films.
Most recently she was in the blockbuster South Indian film "Endhiran" (Robot) alongside Tamil-language superstar Rajinikanth, which broke box office records in India.
She appeared as a jewel thief in Steve Martin's "The Pink Panther 2". Her other English-language films include "Bend It Like Beckham" director Gurinder Chadha's "Bride and Prejudice" in 2004 and "The Last Legion" in 2007.
She was recently seen at the Cannes film festival promoting her upcoming film "Heroine", which was due to begin shooting this year.
The chief executive of UTV Motion Pictures, Ronnie Screwvala, said at the time that Rai had star power.
"She is the brand ambassador for India and for Indian cinema when it comes to the French Riviera."
Rai also has a number of lucrative modelling contracts, including for French cosmetics firm L'Oreal.
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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