There will be no love lost between Real Madrid teammates Gareth Bale and Cristiano Ronaldo when Wales face Portugal in Wednesday's Euro 2016 semi-final, Welsh manager Chris Coleman said on Sunday.
The clash between 26-year-old Bale, the tournament’s joint-top scorer with three goals, and Portuguese superstar Ronaldo, 31, will be the intriguing subplot to the game in Lyon.
While Coleman said that the game will be decided by several factors, he knows that the Wales number 11 and Portugal number seven will be the centre of attention.
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“They’re two of the best players on the planet. They know each other very well, but I don’t suppose there will be any love lost on the evening between both teams, not just Gareth and Cristiano,” he said.
“Both teams know what’s at stake, so any friendship will have to wait until after the game. It’s us against them.”
Wales’ superb 3-1 win over Belgium in Lille on Friday took them into a major tournament semi-final for the first time.
Their chances of reaching the final may hinge on their capacity to prevent Ronaldo causing damage, but Coleman believes that Portugal will be equally anxious about facing Bale.
“In this game, it’s not like I need to pull my defenders aside and say: ‘This team we’re playing, they’ve got a guy up front and his name’s Cristiano Ronaldo and he does this, that and the other.’ Because they already know,” he said.
“But we never did that with Eden Hazard. We know about them, we know where the dangers are. I could work my defenders for the next month, drilling them about Cristiano Ronaldo.
“He still has the capacity to do something special, unstoppable. Of course that’s a danger. But we’ve got one of them as well in our team, so it balances itself out.”
Ronaldo makes no secret of his attachment to the Fifa Ballon d’Or, which he has won three times, but Coleman does not believe that the trophy is a source of motivation for Bale.
“I don’t think that is in Gareth’s head,” Coleman told a press conference at Wales’ media centre in Dinard, northwest France.
“Of course he’s a human being. Thoughts will run through his mind, but he’ll be thinking about how we perform in the next game and nothing beyond that.
“His focus will be on the next opponent and challenge and what he needs to do. That will be in his thinking more than anything else.”
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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.”
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