Manager Brendan Rodgers wants Leicester to sustain fight for trophies despite their budget restrictions


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Leicester City want to build on their FA Cup victory and challenge for greater honours next season even though they lack the financial muscle to compete with the Premier League's bigger clubs, manager Brendan Rodgers said.

Leicester are fifth in the standings - level on 66 points with Liverpool and one behind Chelsea - after dropping out of the top four for the first time this season following Tuesday's loss at the London club.

"We want to fight for trophies," Rodgers told a news conference. "If we could become a sustainable club in European football, that shows we're successful. Commercially, we're 10th. For budget, we are eighth.

"It will be difficult to compete with clubs three or four times our budget but it doesn't stop us fighting. The lowest we will finish is sixth this season."

Leicester go into Sunday's fixture against Tottenham Hotspur behind fourth-placed Liverpool on goal difference and, barring a huge win, they will miss out on reaching the Champions League if the Reds beat Crystal Palace.

Rodgers was manager of Liverpool in 2014 when they needed to overhaul a superior Manchester City goal difference to have a chance of winning the league. The manager masterminded an attacking blitz in the penultimate game at Crystal Palace, They went 3-0, only to be pegged back to a 3-3 draw and missed out by two points.

Rodgers said although they were ecstatic at winning the FA Cup for the first time in the club's history, they would be disappointed if they did not finish in the top four as they fight "two of Europe's biggest clubs" for the final two places.

"We would have no one to blame. We take the responsibility ourselves, we'll fight to the end," he added.

"What we don't want is for the door to be open for us and us not to walk through it. So we need to get a victory and see where it takes us.

"Our concentration is on winning the game against a talented Spurs team. If we finish on 69 points and don't make it into the Champions League, we have been unfortunate."

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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