The streets of Doha were eerily quiet on a Monday morning as a nation gets ready for a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to shine on the global sporting stage.
With the Fifa World Cup due to start in less than a week, Qatar is preparing to look its best as the greatest show on Earth comes to town.
It is hard to imagine the difference just a few days will make, as hundreds of thousands of fans pour into Qatar every day from this weekend.
Up to 1.5 million fans are expected to visit during the 29-day event, almost half the population of the Gulf state.
Many will be visiting the Middle East for the first time, creating a unique opportunity to capture a new audience of tourists in the years ahead.
Passenger arrival zones at the airports, decked out in Qatari maroon and with Fifa livery, will process the thousands of special shuttle flights due to land into Doha from around the region.
While Fifa flags fluttered in the breeze alongside national emblems of the 32 teams taking part, aside from the thousands of extra workers drafted in to ensure the tournament runs without a hitch, there were few signs a World Cup was just days away.
As Doha prepares to welcome a huge influx of visitors, it has already said farewell to thousands of blue collar construction workers who built the World Cup infrastructure, including seven new stadiums, promenades and hotels.
At an otherwise deserted Doha International Airport on Monday morning, queues of migrant workers from Bangladesh, India and Nepal waited patiently in line to board flights to Dubai, and then home.
Many spent months and even years working in the country and were looking their best with fresh haircuts and new clothes to return to their families.
Meanwhile, some 4,500 new arrivals into Doha the week will be security personnel from Pakistan.
They join a multi-national force of Turkish, Jordanian and Moroccan uniformed police officers, as well as crowd-control experts from the UK and US to ensure the tournament plays out trouble-free.
Aside from the occasional traffic police patrol on the quieter-than-usual city roads, there was little sign of any significant security presence. The eyes of the world will be on Qatar on Sunday, when the host nation kicks off the tournament against Ecuador at the 80,000-seater Lusail Iconic Stadium.
Like many previous World Cups, the hosts hope a Qatar win sets fire to the event and captures the imagination of those with only a passing interest in football.
Qatar has formed a competitive team, largely thanks to drafting in players from overseas and experience in competing in South America’s national tournament, the Copa America, as an invited nation in 2021.
Ecuador will provide them with an early test.
The South Americans finished fourth in their qualifying group, with notable draws against Brazil and Argentina - two pre-tournament favourites to reach the final on December 18.
Lives on hold
Everyday life for the city's residents has been put on hold as the tournament approaches.
School days have been reduced and many employees told to stay home to work remotely so final preparations can be made and congestion on the roads minimised in the build-up.
Around 80 per cent of workers have been told to stay home until the tournament ends.
Much has been compromised to ensure the first World Cup in the Arab world is a success. Only time will tell how it will play out.
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.”
