Robin Thicke's Blurred Lines tops Billboard charts

Robin Thicke landed his first No 1 album this week as his latest record, Blurred Lines, topped the Billboard 200 album chart, led by the single of the same name that has become one of this summer's biggest hits. The album's lead single, Blurred Lines, featuring T?I and Pharrell Williams, spent seven weeks at No 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart this summer. The single also climbed back to No 1 on Billboard's Digital Songs chart this week after being knocked off by One Direction's Best Song Ever last week. – Reuters

SRK talks Chennai Express success

Shah Rukh Khan says he can't stop smiling thanks to the box office success of his new film Chennai Express, which was released on Thursday. "I can't stop smiling. The excitement won't settle down," the actor said at a press conference in Mumbai on Friday. "I am happy that people have liked the film and it has opened well." But the Bollywood superstar refused to talk numbers. "I don't know how much it has done. I just woke up. I try to refrain from counting the collections during the first two to three days." – IANS

Rimes and Cibrian get TV series

Eddie Cibrian and LeAnn Rimes already get a lot of tabloid attention. Now the 40-year-old actor and his singer-actress wife are parlaying their notoriety into a new VH1 series tentatively titled LeAnn & -Eddie. The series is scheduled to debut later this year. A statement said the show will "bring the truth and make fun of all the gossip" about the couple. In a recent interview, the 30-year-old Rimes said she and Cibrian were interested in doing "a scripted show based around our lives". The couple were married in 2011. – AP

Fallon: we had baby via surrogate

Jimmy Fallon says he and his wife had their baby daughter with the help of a surrogate. Winnie Rose Fallon, the daughter of the late-night comic and his wife Nancy Juvonen was born on July 23. Fallon said in a portion of a Today show interview broadcast on Friday that the couple had been trying for a while to have a child before succeeding with the help of a surrogate. The couple kept it all a secret until Winnie was born. – AP

Tom Hanks to open and close London Film Festival

The 57th London Film Festival is getting a double dose of Tom Hanks. The festival will close on October 20 with Saving Mr Banks, which stars Hanks as the movie mogul Walt Disney. Hanks also plays the lead role in the festival's opener, the piracy thriller Captain Phillips. Based on real events, Saving Mr Banks tells the story of the fraught page-to-screen journey of the children's classic Mary Poppins. Hanks plays the American filmmaker, with Emma Thompson as the book's apprehensive British author, P?L Travers. The festival runs from October 9 to 20. – AP

T-Pain and DJ Yella coming to Dubai

The UAE's live music scene is returning from the summer break with a dose of modern and old-school hip-hop. For the modern, T-Pain will take on the du Forum on September 6. The rapper will be joined by the UK garage DJs Artful Dodger, responsible for the 1999 hit Re-Rewind. Tickets begin from Dh350 from www.ticketmaster.ae. On August 23, DJ Yella hits the decks at The Music Room in Dubai's Majestic Hotel. The record producer was part of the seminal hip-hop group N.W.A alongside Dr Dre, Ice Cube and Eazy-E. Tickets are Dh100 from the venue or www.platinumlist.ae. – The National staff

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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets

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.”