PERTH // A Chinese aircraft flying over the search zone for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 yesterday spotted several objects floating in the sea, including two bearing colours of the airline, but it was not immediately clear whether they were related to the investigation, officials said.
A Chinese Ilyushin IL-76 spotted three floating objects, China’s official Xinhua News Agency said, a day after several planes and ships combing a new search area closer to mainland Australia saw several other objects.
Malaysia’s defence minister, Hishammuddin Hussein, said there was no new information on the objects spotted on Friday.
“I’ve got to wait to get the reports on whether they have retrieved those objects ... Those will give us some indication,” said Mr Hishammuddin as he visited relatives of the flight’s passengers at a hotel in Putrajaya, Malaysia.
The Australian maritime safety authority (Amsa) said the objects could not be verified or discounted as being from Flight 370 until they were relocated and recovered by ships. “It is not known how much flotsam, such as from fishing activities, is ordinarily there. At least one distinctive fishing object has been identified,” the agency said.
The three objects spotted by the Chinese plane yesterday were white, red and orange in colour, the Xinhua report said. White and red were among the colours of the exterior of the missing Boeing 777.
An image captured a day earlier by a New Zealand plane showed a white rectangular object floating in the sea, but it was not clear whether it was related to the missing jet.
Flight 370 disappeared on March 8, bound for Beijing from Kuala Lumpur, and investigators have been puzzled over what happened aboard the plane, with speculation ranging from equipment failure and a botched hijacking to terrorism or an act by one of the pilots.
Newly analysed satellite data shifted the search zone on Friday, raising hopes searchers may be closer to getting physical evidence that the plane crashed in the Indian Ocean with 239 people aboard.
The newly targeted zone is nearly 1,130 kilometres north-east of sites the searchers have criss-crossed for the past week.
* Associated Press
Leap of Faith
Michael J Mazarr
Public Affairs
Dh67
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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