Anne Hathaway has said she would be interested in more musicals. Johannes Eisele / AFP
Anne Hathaway has said she would be interested in more musicals. Johannes Eisele / AFP
Anne Hathaway has said she would be interested in more musicals. Johannes Eisele / AFP
Anne Hathaway has said she would be interested in more musicals. Johannes Eisele / AFP

Chris Brown crashes car before Grammys

Plus: Hathaway eyes more musicals after Les Mis; Liberty Ross 'following her heart'; Minogue joins Jay-Z's music label.

The National staff with agency

February 11, 2013

  • English
  • Arabic

Los Angeles police say Chris Brown escaped injury after crashing his car into a wall while being chased by paparazzi on Saturday noon. Brown told police that he lost control of his black Porsche during the chase. The singer was not cited or arrested at the scene. The crash came a day before the Grammy Awards, almost exactly four years after Brown assaulted his girlfriend Rihanna the night before the awards show in 2009. – AP

Hathaway eyes more musicals after Les Misérables

Anne Hathaway says she'd like to do more musicals after Les Misérables – but don't expect her to launch into a singing career. Hathaway, along with the film's director and cast, presented the movie at this week's Berlin Film Festival. She told reporters she hopes to do more musicals: "I'm a big fan of them, so that would make me very happy both as an actress and as an audience member." But Hathaway says the experience hasn't made her more comfortable singing in public.
She says: "I have no plans for recording an album." – AP

Liberty Ross ‘following her heart’

Liberty Ross says she's lying low six months after her very public split from her husband, the director Rupert Sanders. Sitting front row on Saturday at Alexander Wang's New York Fashion Week show, the model and actress said the key to moving forward is "keeping her head down, listening to her heart" and that her top priority remains her children. Ross filed for divorce in January after Sanders had an affair with Kristen Stewart. Sanders directed both Stewart and Ross in Snow White and the Huntsman. – AP

Minogue joins Jay-Z’s music label

Kylie Minogue has left her British label EMI and moved to rapper Jay-Z's Roc Nation music label. She joins Rihanna, Shakira, MIA and other artists at the New York-based company, which will increase her presence in the US. Jay-Z created the company in 2008. "We would like to welcome Kylie Minogue to the Roc Nation family!" the company said on its website. Last month, Minogue parted with her longtime manager, Terry Blamey, after 25 years together. – Reuters

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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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