LONDON // Jose Mourinho has reiterated his desire to return to the English Premier League to tackle "unfinished business".
The Portuguese coach left Chelsea in 2007 after a hugely successful spell at Stamford Bridge before winning the Serie A title and Champions League with Inter Milan last season.
Mourinho, currently at Real Madrid in Spain — where he is contracted for another three years — maintains he is planning to return to England sooner rather than later.
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"I miss England and my next job will be in England," he told The Sun newspaper in Britain. "There is unfinished business.
"And I think England wants me back, no? It was the most enjoyable time of my career."
Focusing on Real's fortunes, Mourinho believes his team has the edge on Tottenham and is confident he can end the London club's Champions League run in the quarter-finals.
Spurs' debut Champions League campaign has already delivered famous wins against Inter Milan and AC Milan, and the reward for Harry Redknapp's side is a glamorous last-eight encounter against the Spanish giants.
Mourinho concedes he has some misgivings about coming up against the tournament dark horses, but admits he is at least approaching the tie with more relish than he did last year's last-16 encounter with former club Chelsea.
"I didn't want Chelsea-Inter, because last season it was difficult to play against Chelsea," he told BBC Radio 5. "I did it, and I did everything I could to help my team, but I was not comfortable. I don't like to play against my friends.
"Any team is difficult and any team is a motivation for us. Tottenham are a good team: they beat Inter, they beat Milan, they have ambitions, they have a very good team and a good manager.
"You can feel that it is a happy team, and happy teams are dangerous teams."
Asked whether Spurs could produce an upset and go all the way, Mourinho added: "It's possible. They have a not very easy draw, but they have not had an easy draw from the beginning."
Mourinho's former captain at Chelsea, John Terry, hit the headlines this week after being restored as England skipper a year after losing the armband following revelations about his private life.
The Portuguese refused to comment on the rights and wrongs of the matter, but admitted that England remain in good hands no matter which player dons the armband.
"I don't want to go in that direction, I don't know completely the process. I just think, because I know him, he's a great captain," he said.
"I have never worked with Rio Ferdinand before, but I have no doubts that Rio is also a great captain.
"For some national teams it is difficult to choose [a captain], in England they have so many people with the character to be captains — Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard.
"The English national team is full of big personalities and big players."
Classification of skills
A worker is categorised as skilled by the MOHRE based on nine levels given in the International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO) issued by the International Labour Organisation.
A skilled worker would be someone at a professional level (levels 1 – 5) which includes managers, professionals, technicians and associate professionals, clerical support workers, and service and sales workers.
The worker must also have an attested educational certificate higher than secondary or an equivalent certification, and earn a monthly salary of at least Dh4,000.
Uefa Nations League: How it works
The Uefa Nations League, introduced last year, has reached its final stage, to be played over five days in northern Portugal. The format of its closing tournament is compact, spread over two semi-finals, with the first, Portugal versus Switzerland in Porto on Wednesday evening, and the second, England against the Netherlands, in Guimaraes, on Thursday.
The winners of each semi will then meet at Porto’s Dragao stadium on Sunday, with the losing semi-finalists contesting a third-place play-off in Guimaraes earlier that day.
Qualifying for the final stage was via League A of the inaugural Nations League, in which the top 12 European countries according to Uefa's co-efficient seeding system were divided into four groups, the teams playing each other twice between September and November. Portugal, who finished above Italy and Poland, successfully bid to host the finals.
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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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Cast: Loujain Adada, Zeina Khoury, Farhana Bodi, Ebraheem Al Samadi, Mona Kattan, and couples Safa & Fahad Siddiqui and DJ Bliss & Danya Mohammed
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Company profile
Name: Tratok Portal
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Funding: Privately funded
How it works
1) The liquid nanoclay is a mixture of water and clay that aims to convert desert land to fertile ground
2) Instead of water draining straight through the sand, it apparently helps the soil retain water
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4) The cost of treatment per hectare (2.4 acres) of desert varies from $7,000 to $10,000 per hectare
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Benefits of first-time home buyers' scheme
- Priority access to new homes from participating developers
- Discounts on sales price of off-plan units
- Flexible payment plans from developers
- Mortgages with better interest rates, faster approval times and reduced fees
- DLD registration fee can be paid through banks or credit cards at zero interest rates
