Paris // Paris Saint-Germain head into Saturday’s game at home to Lille with the spectre of next week’s Uefa Champions League last-16 clash with Chelsea looming large over the runaway Ligue 1 leaders.
PSG were frustrated in their attempts to rework a congested fixture list as league officials rejected the club’s request to reschedule this weekend’s encounter, leaving Laurent Blanc’s men just two full days to prepare for Tuesday’s first leg.
Reaching the last four of Europe’s premier club competition is the principal objective for PSG this season, but on Thursday Blanc received the Qatari owners’ unequivocal backing after penning a contract extension until 2018.
“I’m very happy, also for my staff. A coach is nothing without his staff. For us, continuing the adventure is a show of faith but also a big responsibility,” Blanc said of his renewal.
“The club has ambitions both nationally and in Europe, and we’ll do all we can to reach those objectives.”
Read more: Eye on Chelsea after Zlatan Ibrahimovic sends PSG into French Cup quarters
PSG president Nasser Al-Khelaifi insisted he never had any doubts that the former France coach was the right man to take the club forward.
“I always had confidence in Laurent Blanc, I never thought about appointing another coach,” said Al-Khelaifi, adding he had “always believed in (Blanc’s) ability to take the team to a higher level each season”.
PSG are well on course to sew up a fourth successive league title, with a huge 24-point lead over nearest rivals Monaco, but Saturday’s match at the Parc des Princes is the seventh in an eight-game series in little over three weeks.
“The calendar can’t get any tighter than that. If you talk to me about the fixture list, I get heated, so it’s better to avoid it,” Blanc said after Wednesday’s 3-0 victory over Lyon sent holders PSG through to the quarter-finals of the French Cup.
“As of Sunday, we’ll start preparing for the game against Chelsea. The game against Lille, with all respect to Lille, is badly timed.”
Second-place Monaco can widen the gap between themselves and the chasing pack in the race for France’s other automatic Champions League qualifying spot when they visit Saint-Etienne, who are six points adrift in fourth, on Sunday.
Third-place Nice, above Saint-Etienne on goal difference, host Marseille although Claude Puel’s Champions League hopefuls will be without leading scorer Hatem Ben Arfa after the France international was ruled out for around a month with a hamstring injury.
Lyon have forced their way back into European contention with successive 3-0 wins over Bordeaux and Angers, and Bruno Genesio’s side will seek to bounce back from their cup exit at home to Caen.
“We’ve shown we have the quality to compete at the top of the table from here until the end of the season,” Genesio said following the defeat in Paris, with teenage striker Maxwell Cornet adding to that sentiment.
“We’ve managed to pick ourselves up in the league. We have to continue to work hard ahead of Sunday’s match,” said Cornet, who was disappointed Lyon were unable to build on a promising start again PSG in midweek.
Slumping Angers, losers of five of their past seven matches, will aim to arrest their slide and reignite an unlikely European challenge away to Rennes on Friday.
Nantes and Lorient, who both progressed to the last eight of the French Cup on Wednesday, meet in a Brittany derby on Saturday, while Montpellier host fellow strugglers Toulouse with both sides bidding to avoid relegation.
Ligue 1 fixtures (in UAE time)
Friday
Rennes v Angers, 11.30pm
Saturday
Paris Saint-Germain v Lille, 8pm
Gazelec Ajaccio v Troyes, 11pm
Montpellier v Toulouse, 11pm
Guingamp v Bordeaux, 11pm
Nantes v Lorient, 11pm
Reims v Bastia, 11pm
Sunday
Lyon v Caen, 5pm
Saint-Etienne v Monaco, 8pm
Nice v Marseille, midnight
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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.”
