Arsenal Arsene Wenger reacts after a challenge on striker Alexis Sanchez during Arsenal's win over Southampton in the Premier League on Wednesday. Ian Kington / AFP / December 3, 2014
Arsenal Arsene Wenger reacts after a challenge on striker Alexis Sanchez during Arsenal's win over Southampton in the Premier League on Wednesday. Ian Kington / AFP / December 3, 2014
Arsenal Arsene Wenger reacts after a challenge on striker Alexis Sanchez during Arsenal's win over Southampton in the Premier League on Wednesday. Ian Kington / AFP / December 3, 2014
Arsenal Arsene Wenger reacts after a challenge on striker Alexis Sanchez during Arsenal's win over Southampton in the Premier League on Wednesday. Ian Kington / AFP / December 3, 2014

Football

Wenger concedes Alexis Sanchez is ‘in the red zone’ and West Ham rue choosing Carroll over Bony

Arsene Wenger has admitted star striker Alexis Sanchez may be in a danger of burnout, playing in all of the team's games but one this season.

Agencies

December 06, 2014

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Arsenal

Manager Arsene Wenger says striker Alexis Sanchez is in danger of burnout. The Chile forward has been Arsenal’s best player this season, scoring 14 goals in 22 matches in his first year at the London club. But Wenger says he is “in the red zone” in terms of his fitness after playing in all but one of the team’s games this season. Sanchez, who joined from Barcelona in July, has also been playing for Chile, increasing his workload. Wenger said: “Unfortunately, you never know how far you can push. We’re not scientific enough to predict that completely, but he has great recovery potential.” Arsenal travel to Stoke City today.

West Ham

The manager Sam Allardyce may live to regret signing Andy Carroll over in-form Swansea City striker Wilfried Bony when the east London side host the Welsh club tomorrow. Allardyce said that high-flying West Ham, fifth in the table with 24 points from their opening 14 games, bid for Ivory Coast international Bony in 2013 while he was playing for Dutch team Vitesse Arnhem. The manager choose to sign Carroll, in a £15 million (Dh86.4m) deal from Liverpool, instead. Bony has struck six league goals this season to follow an impressive 16 goal-haul in the previous campaign, while Carroll has struggled with injury since his move, making just 19 league appearances in two years and scoring twice. “It was a case of one or the other. We couldn’t do both [deals] with the budget we had,” Allardyce said. “It’ll be very difficult to contain him [Bony], because he’s in such good form. We’ll have to limit the supply into him. It’ll be a good test for our lads to play against a player who’s in such good form.”

Liverpool

Brendan Rodgers said Liverpool hit rock bottom last month, but he is confident that surviving the tumultuous period will strengthen his players. Rodgers’s side lost three successive Premier League matches for the first time in his two-and-a-half-year reign as a nightmare run threatened to ruin the season. But Liverpool responded with a 2-2 Uefa Champions League draw against Bulgarian side Ludogorets and recorded league wins over Stoke and Leicester City. “We were at a low, as everyone saw,” Rodgers said. “We had set such high standards here over the past couple of years and we had fallen way below that.” Liverpool now face a defining month as they look to make up ground with the visit of Sunderland today, before matches against Manchester United and Arsenal. They also face Swiss side Basel, knowing a victory is required to reach the last 16 of the Champions League next week.

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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.”

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