The 2023 UAE Tour is set to see some of cycling's finest sprinters battle for supremacy after organisers confirmed on Friday that Mark Cavendish, Elia Viviani, and Dylan Groenewegen will compete at the UCI World Tour race later this month.
Cavendish, who shares the record of most Tour de France stage wins - 34 - with the great Eddy Merckx, has enjoyed plenty of success in past visits to the Emirates, with seven victories in five tours. His most recent win was last season, when he edged out Jasper Philipsen on the Abu Dhabi Breakwater to win Stage 2.
The 37-year-old Briton will be aiming to build on that past success and impress his new team, having joined Astana Qazaqstan Team at the start of the year.
“This season I am in a new team with the Astana Qazaqstan Team. I had a good winter, got to know my teammates, and when I am happy, like I am now, I know I can achieve good results," Cavendish said.
"As always I am excited to ride the UAE Tour. It's a place I know well and a race I have competed at many times before, achieving a lot of victories. It is a bit like a World Championships for sprinters and it’s important to get started with the right foot.”
With four of the seven stages being flat, the UAE Tour has always attracted many of the world's best sprinters, and 2023 is not different.
Among the riders out to challenge Cavendish will be Italian Viviani. The Ineos Grenadiers rider, winner of the 2018 Dubai Tour, first rode the UAE Tour in 2019, taking a stage victory and the sprinter’s green jersey. Viviani has also won five stages at the Giro d’Italia, one stage at the Tour de France, and was Olympic Champion in the omnium at the 2016 Summer Olympics.
Team Jayco Alula's Groenewegen will also be in the hunt for sprint glory in the Emirates. The Dutchman is a five-time stage winner of the Tour de France (between 2017 to 2022), and is no stranger to the UAE Tour, having won Stage 4 in 2020.
This year he has already proved his form, conquering Stage 1 of the Saudi Tour, and will now be looking for more success in the one and only UCI WorldTour race in the Middle East.
The 2023 UAE Tour will begin on Monday with the flat Dhafra Castle to Al Mirfa (151km) stage. Tuesday will host the 17.2km Team Time Trial starting and ending at Khalifa Port, before the tour's first mountain stage (185km) on Wednesday as the peloton races from Fujairah to Jebel Jais.
The tour will then have three successive flat stages; Stage 4 (174km) in Dubai, Stage 5 (182km) from Al Marjan Island to Umm al Quwain, and Stage 6 (166km) from Abu Dhabi to Abu Dhabi Breakwater.
The seventh and final stage (153km) will see the riders head back into the mountains, starting in Al Ain and ending the race at Jebel Hafeet.
Tuesday's fixtures
Kyrgyzstan v Qatar, 5.45pm
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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.”
