Real Madrid announced Sunday that Karim Benzema, the most decorated player in the Spanish club's history, has played his final game for them.
The Frenchman, 35, signed off in typical fashion with the equaliser in Madrid's 1-1 draw with Athletic Bilbao to claim second place in La Liga behind Barcelona.
It was Benzema's 354th and final goal for a club in which he has won every major honour multiple times and was last year crowned the winner of the Ballon d'Or.
The former Lyon striker looks destined for a lucrative move to Saudi Arabia, with recently crowned Pro League champions Al Ittihad favourites to secure Benzema's signature on a two-year contract.
Replacing him will be no easy feat, but below are three players Real could target to fill the considerable void left by his departure.
Harry Kane
The English striker is almost certain to leave Tottenham Hotspur this summer following a disappointing campaign for the North London club.
Spurs finished the season eighth in the Premier League and missed out on qualification for European football next season.
And while it was a season of turmoil on and off the pitch for the club, Kane enjoyed a prolific campaign.
Thirty of Kane's 32 goals in 2022/23 were scored in the Premier League and his brace in the 4-1 win against relegated Leeds United on the final day extended his Tottenham record to 280 goals.
The 29-year-old is entering the final 12 months of his contract and is unlikely to agree to fresh terms, meaning Spurs must sell their star player now or risk losing him for nothing next summer.
Kane is the most obvious like-for-like replacement for Benzema with the same predatory instincts and ability to bring others into play as the departing Frenchman. The ideal candidate, and with Spurs likely to consider bids of around €80 million, a relatively cheap alternative.
Kylian Mbappe
While Kane may be the obvious foil to partner Vinicius Junior at the tip of Real Madrid's attack next season, the Spanish club's long-standing interest in Mbappe could also be revived this summer.
Mbappe almost joined Real Madrid in the summer of 2022 before opting to sign a new deal to keep him at Paris Saint-Germain until the summer of 2025.
The jet-heeled French striker said at that time that a move to Madrid some time in the future was “never over”, leaving the door open just enough to keep Real interested.
The time to strike could well be now. Mbappe has just collected his fifth Ligue 1 title since joining PSG from Monaco, initially on loan, in 2017, but the energy at the Parc des Princes has been largely negative with the club's “ultras” in open revolt at the way the club is being run by its Qatari owners.
With Lionel Messi departing and Neymar potentially following suit, Mbappe may well decide his own future is better served at one of Europe's elite teams truly capable of winning the Champions League.
At 24, Mbappe is already PSG's all-time top scorer with 212 goals, scoring 41 times in 43 appearances in 2022/23.
The French striker lit up the past two World Cup finals, winning it with Les Bleus in 2018 and scoring a hat-trick in the 2022 final against Argentina, though Messi's side would go on to lift the trophy on penalties.
The terrifying prospect is that Mbappe still has his best years ahead of him. They could well be spent at the Bernabeu if Real are willing to pay PSG close to the €180 million they spent making Mbappe the most expensive teenager in history as the second costliest of all time.
Victor Osimhen
Napoli ended a 33-year wait to be crowned champions of Italy with Nigeria striker Osimhen the talisman in the southern club's title charge.
Not since Diego Maradona's heyday have Napoli ended a Serie A season on top so it was fitting that it was Osimhen's goal, in a 1-1 draw away to Udinese, clinched Napoli's first scudetto since 1990 with a record-equalling five games to spare.
Blessed with explosive pace and precision finishing, Napoli elevated themselves to among one of the finest attacking teams anywhere in Europe, with Osimhen, at the spear of the attack, contributing 26 goals in 32 Serie A appearances and a five in six Champions League games as the club reached the quarter-final stage.
Like Mbappe, Osimhen has a contract with his current club until 2025 and Napoli are unlikely to consider any offers under €100 million for one of the most accomplished finishers to emerge from Africa in recent years.
The Birkin bag is made by Hermès.
It is named after actress and singer Jane Birkin
Noone from Hermès will go on record to say how much a new Birkin costs, how long one would have to wait to get one, and how many bags are actually made each year.
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Gertrude Bell's life in focus
A feature film
At one point, two feature films were in the works, but only German director Werner Herzog’s project starring Nicole Kidman would be made. While there were high hopes he would do a worthy job of directing the biopic, when Queen of the Desert arrived in 2015 it was a disappointment. Critics panned the film, in which Herzog largely glossed over Bell’s political work in favour of her ill-fated romances.
A documentary
A project that did do justice to Bell arrived the next year: Sabine Krayenbuhl and Zeva Oelbaum’s Letters from Baghdad: The Extraordinary Life and Times of Gertrude Bell. Drawing on more than 1,000 pieces of archival footage, 1,700 documents and 1,600 letters, the filmmakers painstakingly pieced together a compelling narrative that managed to convey both the depth of Bell’s experience and her tortured love life.
Books, letters and archives
Two biographies have been written about Bell, and both are worth reading: Georgina Howell’s 2006 book Queen of the Desert and Janet Wallach’s 1996 effort Desert Queen. Bell published several books documenting her travels and there are also several volumes of her letters, although they are hard to find in print. Original documents are housed at the Gertrude Bell Archive at the University of Newcastle, which has an online catalogue.
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.”
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