Motoring

Pole position: Young league of nations

Racing brings together all nationalities to compete, but there is a lot of work behind the scenes, writes Barry Hope

Barry Hope

March 12, 2011

  • English
  • Arabic

This coming week sees the first phase of the UAE's single-seater racing initiative as the start of several three-day driver test and training sessions gets underway at Yas Marina Circuit. Amazingly, it has been almost a year since we announced Formula Gulf 1000, a scholarship series for the region's most ambitious young racing drivers at the Habtoor Grand Hotel in Dubai Marina.

It's truly amazing the amount of work that goes on behind the scenes to make something like this happen. But we've had great support and encouragement from Mohammed Ben Sulayem at the Automobile and Touring Club of the UAE, Richard Cregan at the Yas circuit, Hamish Brown at Dubai Autodrome and my business partner, Ghassan Tabbah Shalabi at Strata Group, whose faith in our vision is unwavering.

We are in the middle of testing six brand new Formula racing cars to ensure they are ready for purpose on Tuesdays when the first group of drivers take to the track. With only four drivers in each group, they will benefit from personalised education and coaching relative to their experience from Andy Pardoe, one of the most distinguished international instructors around.

The nationalities of the drivers reflects the demographics of the region with resident Emirati, Palestinian, Indian and British drivers being joined by drivers from Oman, Malaysia and Pakistan.

Two delightful young men, Haitham Suleiman Al Saqri and Maher Suleiman Al Shibani, have been working tirelessly over the past year to find sponsorship to support their quest to represent Oman in Formula Gulf 1000 and I am pleased to say they have found the support they were looking for.

They will be joined by Indian national Harsh Rajpal, just back from Kuala Lumpur, where he was testing with one of the Formula BMW teams and the more experienced Usmaan Mughal, who raced under the Pakistani flag in our Radical series.

The following week we will be joined by a very talented 18-year-old Malaysian woman, Natasha Seatter, who was beating many of the lads in last year's Formula BMW Pacific series; rising star Edward Jones, a young karting champion from Dubai who I believe has a great racing future ahead of him; talented young Omani karting champion Sanad Al Rawahi and another experienced Emirati karter, Haitham Sultan Al Ali.

The last test session, which started yesterday, features several extremely talented Abu Dhabi drivers, including karting ace Mohammed Al Dhaheri, UAE GT Championship racer Saad Salman, and - subject to confirmation - Radical Cup race winner Jassim Al Shamsi and young rally driver Mansour bin Jebr Al Suwaidi.

This will be a significant milestone for all concerned because it goes right at the issue of encouraging young Emirati drivers to race only in the safety of a race circuit. They will be good examples for the entire country.

Barry Hope is a director of GulfSport Racing, which is hoping to produce the first Arab F1 driver through the FG1000 race series. Join the UAE racing community online at www.singleseaterblog.com

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.”

The%20Super%20Mario%20Bros%20Movie
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EDirectors%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Aaron%20Horvath%20and%20Michael%20Jelenic%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EStars%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Chris%20Pratt%2C%20Anya%20Taylor-Joy%2C%20Charlie%20Day%2C%20Jack%20Black%2C%20Seth%20Rogen%20and%20Keegan-Michael%20Key%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ERating%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%201%2F5%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
While you're here
F1