The poor Chicago Cubs.
You have to feel sorry for manager Joe Maddon’s club. Not because they do not have one of the most formidable line-ups in the game.
Not because they have not added some excellent pieces to the team that won 97 games a year ago and breezed into the play-offs.
And not because they have not won a World Series since 1908, the longest stretch of heartache for any major sports franchise in North America.
No, it is because they are the consensus favourite of almost every forecaster to win the National League pennant and move on to the Series, where some are boldly predicting an end to their 108-year-old misery. It is not the curse of the Cubs. It is the curse of being lauded. It is baseball’s way. Taking down its awe-inspiring teams and anointing its underdogs in October.
This year, the Cubbies have replaced the Washington Nationals as the team to beat.
For the past several seasons, it has been the Nats that made forecasters swoon.
So what happened to those Washington clubs? Early exits in the post-season, and then last year’s stunning pratfall in which they failed to make the play-offs at all.
Could that actually happen to the Cubs?
It appears unlikely. Cy Young Award winner Jake Arrieta is still around to pitch on Opening Day against the Los Angeles Angels on Monday.
He will have a capable parade of fellow starters behind him, including left-hander Jon Lester, right-hander Kyle Hendricks and newcomer John Lackey.
Lackey’s arrival from their hated rivals, the St Louis Cardinals, even makes the Cards a little weaker.
But that was not all. The Cubs also signed free agent outfielder Jason Heyward away from St Louis.
The addition of Heyward, a stellar defender and steady hitter, has enabled the Cubs to put the gifted, but erratic, young talent Jorge Soler in a reserve role.
Soler, of course, would be starting for most MLB teams.
But it is almost criminal how much youthful brilliance the Cubs have in their line-up everyday.
Some think Most Valuable Player candidate Anthony Rizzo, the 26-year-old first baseman, might actually add to his 31 home runs and 101 runs batted in from 2015.
Rookie of the Year Kris Bryant, 24, could be right there, too, after posting 26 homers and 99 RBI last season.
Two more “kids” who weren’t around on Opening Day last season, but had breakout seasons, will have a chance to do it from the beginning this time.
Left fielder Kyle Schwarber, 23, contributed 16 home runs and 43 RBI while playing less than half the time in 2015. Silky smooth defensive shortstop Addison Russell, 22, also was strong enough at the plate (13 homers) that he displaced veteran centrepiece Starlin Castro, now working as a New York Yankee.
That is how good things are around Wrigley Field these days. It is considered a demotion when you move from the Cubs to the mystique-laden Yankees.
Just for good measure, Chicago also picked up versatile veteran Ben Zobrist to play second base, after he helped the Kansas City Royals to their first championship in 30 years.
That would be the same Royals who were picked by almost no one to win anything last year. Fortunately for them, they still don’t seem to impress the experts.
Kansas City are just one of several American League teams that are confounding the prognosticators, who cannot seem to come to agreement on any one particular powerhouse.
So only the Cubs are challenging baseball’s fickle relationship with favourites. If Chicago do win it all, everyone will say it was expected.
But, really, they will have done it the hard way.
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Sole survivors
- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
- Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
Company info
Company name: Entrupy
Co-founders: Vidyuth Srinivasan, co-founder/chief executive, Ashlesh Sharma, co-founder/chief technology officer, Lakshmi Subramanian, co-founder/chief scientist
Based: New York, New York
Sector/About: Entrupy is a hardware-enabled SaaS company whose mission is to protect businesses, borders and consumers from transactions involving counterfeit goods.
Initial investment/Investors: Entrupy secured a $2.6m Series A funding round in 2017. The round was led by Tokyo-based Digital Garage and Daiwa Securities Group's jointly established venture arm, DG Lab Fund I Investment Limited Partnership, along with Zach Coelius.
Total customers: Entrupy’s customers include hundreds of secondary resellers, marketplaces and other retail organisations around the world. They are also testing with shipping companies as well as customs agencies to stop fake items from reaching the market in the first place.
Naga
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Day 4, Abu Dhabi Test: At a glance
Moment of the day Not much was expected – on Sunday or ever – of Hasan Ali as a batsman. And yet he lit up the late overs of the Pakistan innings with a happy cameo of 29 from 25 balls. The highlight was when he launched a six right on top of the netting above the Pakistan players’ viewing area. He was out next ball.
Stat of the day – 1,358 There were 1,358 days between Haris Sohail’s previous first-class match and his Test debut for Pakistan. The lack of practice in the multi-day format did not show, though, as the left-hander made an assured half-century to guide his side through a potentially damaging collapse.
The verdict As is the fashion of Test matches in this country, the draw feels like a dead-cert, before a clatter of wickets on the fourth afternoon puts either side on red alert. With Yasir Shah finding prodigious turn now, Pakistan will be confident of bowling Sri Lanka out. Whether they have enough time to do so and chase the runs required remains to be seen.
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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.”
Email sent to Uber team from chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi
From: Dara
To: Team@
Date: March 25, 2019 at 11:45pm PT
Subj: Accelerating in the Middle East
Five years ago, Uber launched in the Middle East. It was the start of an incredible journey, with millions of riders and drivers finding new ways to move and work in a dynamic region that’s become so important to Uber. Now Pakistan is one of our fastest-growing markets in the world, women are driving with Uber across Saudi Arabia, and we chose Cairo to launch our first Uber Bus product late last year.
Today we are taking the next step in this journey—well, it’s more like a leap, and a big one: in a few minutes, we’ll announce that we’ve agreed to acquire Careem. Importantly, we intend to operate Careem independently, under the leadership of co-founder and current CEO Mudassir Sheikha. I’ve gotten to know both co-founders, Mudassir and Magnus Olsson, and what they have built is truly extraordinary. They are first-class entrepreneurs who share our platform vision and, like us, have launched a wide range of products—from digital payments to food delivery—to serve consumers.
I expect many of you will ask how we arrived at this structure, meaning allowing Careem to maintain an independent brand and operate separately. After careful consideration, we decided that this framework has the advantage of letting us build new products and try new ideas across not one, but two, strong brands, with strong operators within each. Over time, by integrating parts of our networks, we can operate more efficiently, achieve even lower wait times, expand new products like high-capacity vehicles and payments, and quicken the already remarkable pace of innovation in the region.
This acquisition is subject to regulatory approval in various countries, which we don’t expect before Q1 2020. Until then, nothing changes. And since both companies will continue to largely operate separately after the acquisition, very little will change in either teams’ day-to-day operations post-close. Today’s news is a testament to the incredible business our team has worked so hard to build.
It’s a great day for the Middle East, for the region’s thriving tech sector, for Careem, and for Uber.
Uber on,
Dara
