The ninth annual Ras Al Khaimah Arts Festival (RAKFAF) will take place in February with more than 100 regional and international artists participating.
The 2021 iteration bears the theme of hope. The festival includes outdoor art and photography exhibitions, workshops, film screenings and the launch of an oral history project around the historic pearling village of Al Jazirah Al Hamra, which is where the festival has been taking place for the last two years. Built around the 14th century, the town is remarkable for its architecture, with buildings made using traditional materials such as coral, mud and date palms.
This year, RAKFAF is also presenting two satellite exhibitions – one on the public viewing desk of Jebel Jais, UAE’s highest peak, and the other at the Open Park on Al Marjan Island.
With a focus on emerging talent, the festival will present more than 130 artworks by artists from 49 countries. Local visual artists and photographers include Azza Al Nuaimi, a graphic designer from Ras Al Khaimah whose work fuses heritage and contemporary design and photographers Nuwair Al Hejari, whose recent project documented harvest season in the Bidya desert, and Faisal Al Rais, who focuses on street photography. The artist list includes names from the wider Mena region and South Asia.
RAKFAF has also tapped French-Israeli curator Sharon Toval to present four video artworks by Israeli artists, marking the first time that an Israeli art curator has participated in the festival.
The oral history project consists of short films shot at villas in Al Jazirah Al Hamra Heritage Village with former residents chronicling their daily lives when the pearl trade flourished. The project will serve as a historical record of life in the emirate decades ago and preserve Ras Al Khaimah’s cultural heritage.
Independent filmmakers from Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Tunisia and Hungary will be screening their works throughout the duration of the festival until April, with screenings taking place in Al Hamra Mall and the Open Park.
The works of Al Qasimi Foundation Film Grant recipients Anna Kipervaser and Majid Alloush will premiere at this year's festival. Last year, the two received a start-up funding of Dh25,000 to produce their short film. Titled Synopsis: Terrain Ahead, the experimental documentary explores the impact of humans on the UAE coastline over the last 100 years.
RAKFAF has also established new partnerships with other art organisations in the UAE, namely Art Dubai and NYUAD's Arts Centre. Hala Khayat, Art Dubai's regional director, will present a talk during the festival, while NYUAD Arts Centre will host a virtual workshop by musician and ethnomusicologist, Ghazi Al Mulaifi.
In a statement, Sheikh Saud bin Saqr Al Qasimi, ruler of Ras Al Khaimah, highlighted how art can bring community together: “2020 was indeed the most challenging of years for our community and this year’s festival emerges at a crucial time, early in the new year as our community looks to new beginnings, and with an exciting and enriching programme presented around the theme of hope – a theme that seems so relevant in these unprecedented times and one that explores the strength and compassion that holds our community together.”
RAKFAF will run until April 3.
More information can be found on rakfinearts.ae
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Avatar: Fire and Ash
Director: James Cameron
Starring: Sam Worthington, Sigourney Weaver, Zoe Saldana
Rating: 4.5/5
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Our family matters legal consultant
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
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.”
First Person
Richard Flanagan
Chatto & Windus
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The Beach Bum
Director: Harmony Korine
Stars: Matthew McConaughey, Isla Fisher, Snoop Dogg
Two stars
The Scale for Clinical Actionability of Molecular Targets
Liz%20Truss
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Red flags
- Promises of high, fixed or 'guaranteed' returns.
- Unregulated structured products or complex investments often used to bypass traditional safeguards.
- Lack of clear information, vague language, no access to audited financials.
- Overseas companies targeting investors in other jurisdictions - this can make legal recovery difficult.
- Hard-selling tactics - creating urgency, offering 'exclusive' deals.
Courtesy: Carol Glynn, founder of Conscious Finance Coaching
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How Tesla’s price correction has hit fund managers
Investing in disruptive technology can be a bumpy ride, as investors in Tesla were reminded on Friday, when its stock dropped 7.5 per cent in early trading to $575.
It recovered slightly but still ended the week 15 per cent lower and is down a third from its all-time high of $883 on January 26. The electric car maker’s market cap fell from $834 billion to about $567bn in that time, a drop of an astonishing $267bn, and a blow for those who bought Tesla stock late.
The collapse also hit fund managers that have gone big on Tesla, notably the UK-based Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust and Cathie Wood’s ARK Innovation ETF.
Tesla is the top holding in both funds, making up a hefty 10 per cent of total assets under management. Both funds have fallen by a quarter in the past month.
Matt Weller, global head of market research at GAIN Capital, recently warned that Tesla founder Elon Musk had “flown a bit too close to the sun”, after getting carried away by investing $1.5bn of the company’s money in Bitcoin.
He also predicted Tesla’s sales could struggle as traditional auto manufacturers ramp up electric car production, destroying its first mover advantage.
AJ Bell’s Russ Mould warns that many investors buy tech stocks when earnings forecasts are rising, almost regardless of valuation. “When it works, it really works. But when it goes wrong, elevated valuations leave little or no downside protection.”
A Tesla correction was probably baked in after last year’s astonishing share price surge, and many investors will see this as an opportunity to load up at a reduced price.
Dramatic swings are to be expected when investing in disruptive technology, as Ms Wood at ARK makes clear.
Every week, she sends subscribers a commentary listing “stocks in our strategies that have appreciated or dropped more than 15 per cent in a day” during the week.
Her latest commentary, issued on Friday, showed seven stocks displaying extreme volatility, led by ExOne, a leader in binder jetting 3D printing technology. It jumped 24 per cent, boosted by news that fellow 3D printing specialist Stratasys had beaten fourth-quarter revenues and earnings expectations, seen as good news for the sector.
By contrast, computational drug and material discovery company Schrödinger fell 27 per cent after quarterly and full-year results showed its core software sales and drug development pipeline slowing.
Despite that setback, Ms Wood remains positive, arguing that its “medicinal chemistry platform offers a powerful and unique view into chemical space”.
In her weekly video view, she remains bullish, stating that: “We are on the right side of change, and disruptive innovation is going to deliver exponential growth trajectories for many of our companies, in fact, most of them.”
Ms Wood remains committed to Tesla as she expects global electric car sales to compound at an average annual rate of 82 per cent for the next five years.
She said these are so “enormous that some people find them unbelievable”, and argues that this scepticism, especially among institutional investors, “festers” and creates a great opportunity for ARK.
Only you can decide whether you are a believer or a festering sceptic. If it’s the former, then buckle up.
