Sir David Attenborough is now on Instagram, and has become the fastest person to reach one million followers. EPA
Sir David Attenborough is now on Instagram, and has become the fastest person to reach one million followers. EPA
Sir David Attenborough is now on Instagram, and has become the fastest person to reach one million followers. EPA
Sir David Attenborough is now on Instagram, and has become the fastest person to reach one million followers. EPA

Lifestyle

Sir David Attenborough breaks Jennifer Aniston's Instagram record

Since joining Instagram, the British naturalist has teased a mystery film project with Prince William

Farah Andrews
Farah Andrews
Dubai

September 26, 2020

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Sir David Attenborough has certainly made an impact since joining Instagram.  Within four hours and 44 minutes of going public with his profile on the social media platform, the 94-year-old naturalist had a follower count of more than one million.

The race to a seven-figure following broke the record previously held by Friends star, Jennifer Aniston, says Guinness World Records.

At the time of writing, two days after joining Instagram, Attenborough had more than 3.7 million followers.

The beloved environmentalist, known for voicing several world-famous nature documentaries, joined Instagram on Thursday in what he explains is a bid to save the planet.

“Hello my name is David Attenborough and I’ve been appearing on radio and television for the last 60 years. But this is my first time on Instagram. I’m making this move and exploring this new way of communication, to me because, as we all know, the world is in trouble,” he says in his first post.

Attenborough goes on to name some of the environmental crises plaguing the planet before saying that over the next few weeks he will be recording messages to explain what the problems are and how we can deal with them.

The account is being run by the team behind A Life On Our Planet. The first post explains: "Social media isn't David's usual habitat so while he's recorded messages solely for Instagram, like the one in this post, we're helping to run this account. In case you're wondering, 'we' are Jonnie and Colin and we worked with David on A Life On Our Planet."

A mystery project with Prince William 

Since joining, Attenborough has shared two videos, as well as a series of Instagram Stories, one of which teases a mystery project with Prince William.

The image shows two black directors chairs, with the names Prince William and Sir David written on them, on his Story, Attenborough wrote, "Stay tuned".

Prince William shared the same photo to the Kensington Royal Instagram page, which he shares with his wife, the Duchess of Cambridge.

The royal shed little light on the project, simply captioning it with a series of emojis (a pair of eyes, a video camera and the Earth). He did however geotag the image to Kensington Palace the Cambridge's home in London.

While you're here
While you're here
BORDERLANDS

Starring: Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Jamie Lee Curtis

Director: Eli Roth

Rating: 0/5

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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