ABU DHABI // Sports officials plan to launch a full season of falconry competitions this year.
The success of the Abu Dhabi Falconry Competition in November encouraged officials to plan a longer tournament, the Abu Dhabi Sports Council (ADSC) said yesterday.
The President's Cup for Falconry Competitions 2013-14 will have a purse of Dh13 million, which will be spread across three categories and feature different types of falcons, said Mohammed Ebraheem Al Mahmood, general secretary of the sports council.
The competition will be run by the Emirates Falconry Club. Mr Al Mahmood said more details will be released by the club in the coming months.
The competition will begin in October and each month there will be elimination rounds within each of the disciplines. The season will end with a 10-day competition in February 2014.
"It'll be almost the same as last year," Mr Al Mahmood said.
The first competition will feature falcons covering 400 metres in the fastest time, usually under 20 seconds.
In the second competition, falcons follow a bait bird trailed behind a model plane. The winning falcon will be the one that flies the farthest distance and for the longest time. The event was introduced at the contest in November and was a success, Mr Al Mahmood said.
In the third competition, the falcon's strength will be tested as it flies from the ground to a balloon 200 metres in the air.
There will be two separate tournaments. One for sheikhs and one for the general public. Each tournament will have six rounds spread over the five months.
The best falconer of the season will be selected at the end of the season by the number of points he collects.
The previous competition lasted five days and saw 650 falconers compete with 1,200 birds.
"In the last competition we had positive and negative feedback and we took all the negative things from our participants on board and came up with this proposal" to extend the tournament, Mr Al Mahmood said.
The ADSC chairman, Sheikh Nahyan bin Zayed, said: "Falconry competitions in the UAE are getting wide care and support from the President, Sheikh Khalifa, as His Highness is so keen to maintain the sports of our ancestors as well as maintaining the dear heritage of our beloved country."
The sports council, he said, added the President's Cup for Falconry to its portfolio of cultural sports that aim to encourage the practice of sports played for generations in the UAE.
Sheikh Nahyan said the event would enhance the coherence of Emiratis and national identity, and would maintain the country's heritage.
"This adds to the all the traditional sports we have now in Abu Dhabi," Mr Al Mahmood said. "We have the horse racing, camel racing, the traditional dhow sailing races and now with the falconry competition we feel the map is completed."
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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.”
