SHARJAH // Cosmin Olaroiu’s reaction in the dugout said it all. At times he seemed livid and for good reason.
A goal up, Al Ahli also had the numerical advantage for 41 minutes of the match after Sharjah defender Shahin Abdulrahman was sent off for tackling Ciel to the ground. Olaroiu wanted his league champions to take advantage of the situation and kill the game, but that never happened. Instead, the 10-men Sharjah went on the offensive.
“We had the advantage of one more player, but we relaxed,” Olaroiu said. “In such situations, we need to act like a big team and kill the game.
“I tried to take advantage by putting two strikers [Grafite and Ahmed Khalil] and playing [Luis] Jimenez behind them. Unfortunately, that moment everything turned against us.
“We created some good situations, some good chances, but we relaxed a little. We did not play bad, we just dropped our concentration.
“I don’t know how many chances we wasted, but thankfully we got the three points.”
The three points have come at a cost though. Ciel, Ahli’s most influential player on the night, took a knock in a Abdulrahman tackle, and he had to be stretchered off with a suspected broken ankle.
Grafite, who is recovering from an injury, was brought on as a substitute.
“Now, I have to worry about the Ciel injury and some players do not look in good shape physically,” the Romanian said. “I have to solve this problem before the next game.
“The most important thing is we got three points tonight.
“It was not easy and we struggled. Sharjah are not an easy team to play against and they showed it tonight. They will make it difficult for any team in the league.”
For the first 49 minutes of the match, Sharjah did not look like a team that might threaten too many sides in the AGL.
The two Brazilian strikers, Wanderley and Luan, looked completely out of their depths but, according to coach Paulo Bonamigo, it was the absence of the injured Leonardo Lima that hurt them the most.
“Lima is a very important player in the midfield for us and we did miss him a lot, especially since the two new Brazilian players did not perform to expectations,” Bonamigo said.
“Against a team like Al Ahli, you need more than 100 per cent from all your players, but those two [Luan and Wanderley] were clearly not at 100 per cent.
“They are new here and hopefully, with time, they will adapt to the conditions and the league, and start giving the kind of performances we expect from them.”
Toure waits on punishment after striking Baniyas player
Al Nasr forward Ibrahima Toure will find out on Wednesday if he will receive further punishment after he was sent off for striking Baniyas defender Mohammed Jaber during Monday’s Arabian Gulf League match.
Jaber was left with a bleeding facial wound as a consequence of the incident, with the UAE Football Association’s disciplinary committee to meet this afternoon to decide if the automatic two-match ban for a straight red card is sufficient or if it needs to be increased.
Toure, 28, has apologised to Jaber on Twitter, but Nasr officials have reportedly suspended the striker until further notice over the affair.
arizvi@thenational.ae
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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Profile of VoucherSkout
Date of launch: November 2016
Founder: David Tobias
Based: Jumeirah Lake Towers
Sector: Technology
Size: 18 employees
Stage: Embarking on a Series A round to raise $5 million in the first quarter of 2019 with a 20 per cent stake
Investors: Seed round was self-funded with “millions of dollars”
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.”
