Bowe ties it up for Ospreys

Ospreys made it back-to-back bonus-point victories over Viadana as they climbed to the top of Pool Three of the Heineken Cup. Man-of-the-match Tommy Bowe crossed twice as the Welsh region followed up their 62-7 win in Italy last week with a less convincing six tries to one success at an icy cold Liberty Stadium. Dan Biggar, still only 20, provided 16 points to make it a remarkable 37 points out of 37 with the boot from the two Viadana clashes.

But the big plus point for the Ospreys in the 45-19 win was the return of the Lions prop Adam Jones. The tight-head came on 58 minutes into the match for his first rugby in six months since dislocating his shoulder in the Lions' second Test against South Africa last June. The Cardiff Blues saw their Cup hopes dented after Toulouse cruised to a convincing 27-7 win in Pool Five. Scrum-half Frederic Michalak was the match-winner for the three-time champions with an 18-point tally on the way to the man-of-the-match award.

Michalak produced a polished performance by booting five penalties and a drop goal as well as setting up captain Thierry Dusautoir's first-half try. The Blues hit back briefly through Faao Filise's score but the visitors' ill-discipline proved costly, with both Andy Powell and captain Paul Tito yellow carded Edinburgh gained revenge over Bath and got the win they needed to keep their European hopes alive into the New Year in a disappointing game where neither side threatened a try.

The full-back and captain Chris Paterson scored all the hosts' points in the 9-6 win, landing his first penalty after two minutes. Nicky Little replied and tied the scores again before half-time after Paterson restored the lead. Edinburgh dominated after a blizzard hit Murrayfield and half-time had elapsed, but a Paterson penalty was enough to overcome a lacklustre Bath. Bath's Ryan Davis missed two penalties late on.

It was the Dimitri Yachvili show at Llanelli's Parc-y-Scarlets as Biarritz eased to a 26-6 victory in the Pool Two match which had been postponed from Friday. The French international scrum-half ran the game for the French pool leaders, scoring two tries and kicking 13 points as Biarritz maintained their 100 per cent record. Northampton Saints claimed a narrow 21-18 victory against Benetton Treviso after withstanding a late comeback from the Italians. A late penalty try from Treviso brought the Italians to within a score of the Saints who were forced to close shop in the final minutes to hold on for the win.

Saints led 7-3 at half-time through Phil Dowson's try and scored twice more through Jon Clarke and Courtney Lawes but they were forced on the back foot by a score from Emiliano Mulieri and the late penalty try, with Neil Best in the sin bin. However, the victory was still enough to send Northampton top of Pool One. * With agencies

How Voiss turns words to speech

The device has a screen reader or software that monitors what happens on the screen

The screen reader sends the text to the speech synthesiser

This converts to audio whatever it receives from screen reader, so the person can hear what is happening on the screen

A VOISS computer costs between $200 and $250 depending on memory card capacity that ranges from 32GB to 128GB

The speech synthesisers VOISS develops are free

Subsequent computer versions will include improvements such as wireless keyboards

Arabic voice in affordable talking computer to be added next year to English, Portuguese, and Spanish synthesiser

Partnerships planned during Expo 2020 Dubai to add more languages

At least 2.2 billion people globally have a vision impairment or blindness

More than 90 per cent live in developing countries

The Long-term aim of VOISS to reach the technology to people in poor countries with workshops that teach them to build their own device

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.”