BOGOTA // Colombia on Monday began its first day of peace with the country’s largest insurgency, ending 52 years of warfare after a ceasefire between the Farc rebels and the government went into effect.
The full ceasefire ordered by president Juan Manuel Santos and the head of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc), Timoleon Jimenez, began at midnight on Sunday.
“This August 29 a new phase of history begins for Colombia. We silenced the guns. THE WAR WITH THE FARC IS OVER!” Mr Santos wrote on Twitter one minute after midnight.
A message from the official Farc account was more restrained: “From this moment on the bilateral and definitive ceasefire begins.”
The ceasefire is the first in which both sides are committed to a definite end to the fighting.
“The ceasefire is really one more seal on the end of the conflict. It is the test of fire,” said Carlos Alfonso Velazquez, a security expert at the University of La Sabana.
Hundreds of thousands of Colombians have died since 1964 as rebel armies and gangs battled in the jungles in what is considered Latin America’s last major civil armed conflict.
Both Mr Santos and Mr Jimenez are due to sign a final, full peace agreement between September 20 and 26.
The end of hostilities will be followed by a six-month demobilisation process.
From Monday, the Farc’s estimated 7,500 fighters will head to collection points to surrender their weapons under UN supervision.
Guerrillas who refuse to demobilise and disarm “will be pursued with all the strength of the state forces”, Mr Santos said.
Before the demobilisation, the Farc will convene its leaders and troops one last time before transforming into “a legal political movement”, according to a statement published on Saturday.
On October 2, Colombians will vote in a referendum that Mr Santos hopes will endorse the peace agreement.
“We are on the verge of perhaps the most important political decision of our lives,” Mr Santos said.
The territorial and ideological conflict has left some 260,000 dead, 45,000 missing and 6.9 million people uprooted from their homes.
Efforts to launch peace talks with a smaller rebel group, the National Liberation Army, have yet to bear fruit.
But with the Farc ordering a ceasefire, the conflict appears to be reaching an end.
“To the soldiers, naval personnel and air force pilots, police and state security and intelligence agencies, we wish to express our clear and definite will for reconciliation,” said Jimenez, known by the nom-de-guerre Timochenko, in Havana.
“Rivalries and resentment must remain in the past. Today more than ever we regret that so much death and pain has been caused by the war. Today more than ever we wish to embrace them as compatriots and start to work together for a new Colombia.”
* Agence France-Presse
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.”
2025 Fifa Club World Cup groups
Group A: Palmeiras, Porto, Al Ahly, Inter Miami.
Group B: Paris Saint-Germain, Atletico Madrid, Botafogo, Seattle.
Group C: Bayern Munich, Auckland City, Boca Juniors, Benfica.
Group D: Flamengo, ES Tunis, Chelsea, Leon.
Group E: River Plate, Urawa, Monterrey, Inter Milan.
Group F: Fluminense, Borussia Dortmund, Ulsan, Mamelodi Sundowns.
Group G: Manchester City, Wydad, Al Ain, Juventus.
Group H: Real Madrid, Al Hilal, Pachuca, Salzburg.