Bird window stickers, £12.50 (Dh75) for 10 birds and 10 wires.
Bird window stickers, £12.50 (Dh75) for 10 birds and 10 wires.

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Home Shopping: Pretty, special finds from Cox and Cox

Cox and Cox sells gorgeous home accessories and gifts, scouring the globe for beautiful buys and items you won't have seen elsewhere.

Penny Malone

August 04, 2011

When friends Fiona Cox and Lizzie Thornton-Allan left London to bring up their children in the Somerset countryside, they both wanted flexible jobs so they could work from home. As Fiona had previously worked as a stylist and TV presenter and Lizzie was a film producer, both were very visual, with great creative credentials. In 2001, they teamed up to start Cox and Cox, their own online shop selling gorgeous home accessories and gifts. Later, Michelle Follett-Holt joined them - bringing with her a successful catalogue called Cowboys and Cupcakes - and Cox and Cox became the daddy of UK mail-order shops.

If you're bored with mass-produced tat, you'll be happy here. Every season, the team scours the globe for beautiful buys and items you won't have seen elsewhere. Homeware-wise, there's a mind-boggling array - everything from candles to compost buckets - it's a site to bookmark and browse at leisure on a regular basis.

I recently bought some quirky tealight holders, with vintage typographical motifs on them - a heart, a pointing hand and a crown - which look gorgeous in a line down the centre of the table for an elegant dinner party. Now I've got my eye on the pretty mercury glass candlesticks, too - they look like expensive antiques - and there are some jewel-coloured espresso spoons and small china bowls which will inevitably slip into my shopping basket one day.

If you're decorating a children's bedroom, have a peep at the cute bird window stickers: You get 10 perching birds and 10 wires for them to sit on, so you can create your own display. This is also a one-stop shop for brides and party planners. Table decorations, placename holders, confetti, unusual favours and stunning outdoor lighting - it's all here.

The Creative Diva section is where I spend most of my time - it's full of all things fun and quirky. Rubber alphabet stamps for making bespoke stationery, a paint-your-own Russian doll kit and cookie cutters shaped like feet or jigsaw pieces - at Cox and Cox, you never know what you'll stumble upon next.

For shipping prices call 00 44 0844 858 0744 or see www.coxandcox.co.uk

Specs

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Price: From Dh98,800

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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.”