Content is king may be a cliche, but it is also true.
Demand for high-quality media output is a central theme of this year's Abu Dhabi Media Summit, which starts on Tuesday.
James Cameron, the film director, Yuri Milner, the Facebook investor, and James Murdoch, the News Corp executive, are among those expected in the UAE capital for the three-day event.
Topics include the rise of 3D in the entertainment industry, about which Mr Cameron is expected to discuss Avatar, the highest-grossing film of all time that he directed.
Other themes are likely to include the rise of digital media, the launch of an Arabic-language channel by Sky News and new forms of revenues for the music industry.
About 350 media industry executives are expected to attend the summit, hosted by the Abu Dhabi Media Company, which also owns and publishes The National.
The event is due to be attended by the top executives of companies such as Nokia, Thomson Reuters, Vivendi and Akamai Technologies, a company that focuses on internet content.
But while there is a global slant to the event, the summit plays a role in cementing Abu Dhabi's place in the world's media industry.
Avi Bhojani, the group chief executive of the marketing and communications agency BPG Group, says the calibre of the attendees at the summit suggests the regional media industry is growing up fast.
"Certainly it's giving this perception that the media industry in this region is coming of age … It gives the impression that the industry is being treated more seriously," he says.
The era of inflated salaries for some executives in Abu Dhabi's media industry is making way for a more sustainable talent base in the UAE capital, he says.
"In Abu Dhabi you tend to feel that the initial 'let's throw money and attract talent' is wearing off. And yet your decent talent is staying," he says.
Tim Smythe, the chief executive of the Dubai production house Filmworks, which facilitated the shoot of Mission: Impossible in the emirate, believes events such as the media summit boost Abu Dhabi's standing in the global industry. "It's definitely on the way to doing that. Abu Dhabi is getting a lot of attention. It takes time, but they're starting to attract some of the big media players," says Mr Smythe.
Media output is certainly on the rise in the emirate. Mr Smythe cites the production of Sea Shadow, the first local feature film by Imagenation Abu Dhabi, a film fund owned by ADMC.
And Abu Dhabi's media centre, twofour54, has grown significantly since the inaugural media summit last year, in which Rupert Murdoch gave the keynote address.
In the past 12 months, the number of media firms based at the centre has more than doubled, says Wayne Borg, the deputy chief executive and chief operating officer at twofour54. There are now 1,000 staff based at twofour54, compared with 300 a year ago.
"We've got over 100 [licensed companies] based at twofour54 - we had less than 40 at the time of the last summit," says Mr Borg.
The growth of twofour54 has been accompanied by an increase in the amount of content created at the centre. Twofour54's on-site studios have been used to produce more than "2,000 hours of content over the past year", Mr Borg says.
Digital media has also seen a boost. AppsArabia, the mobile phone applications fund backed by twofour54, released its first iPhone app in December.
Kalimat, a multiplayer word game that can be played in Arabic or English, was developed with the Dubai entrepreneur Fares Fayad, who pitched the idea to the fund.
Mr Borg says additional AppsArabia-funded products are in the pipeline. "We've got another nine in development right now, which will be launching in the coming six months."
Other milestones in Abu Dhabi's media industry since last year's summit include the launch of National Geographic Al Arabiya, published by ADMC, and the daily newspaper, Sport 360°, which is based at twofour54.
In March last year, Fox International Channels announced it had partnered twofour54 to open its regional headquarters in the Abu Dhabi media zone.
It also emerged last year that Sky News planned to launch an Arabic-language news channel based in Abu Dhabi by the end of next year.
And so this year's Abu Dhabi Media Summit, an event described by one commentator as "the Davos of media", is likely to encourage more content which, if not quite a "king", is at least deserving of royal status.
bflanagan@thenational.ae
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Global state-owned investor ranking by size
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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.”
