Eighteen months after retiring from a professional career that brought him 99 international caps and two British & Irish Lions tours, Mike Phillips made a return to the playing field for Jebel Ali Dragons’ seconds at the Dubai Rugby Sevens.
The former Wales scrum-half was appointed as coach of the Dubai-based club in the summer. He had hinted back then that he might make a comeback if ever the side were short.
When a space opened up to play for the second-string in the Gulf Men’s Open at this weekend's Sevens, he was happy to oblige.
“The boys were short, so I thought I’d stick my name down and help out,” Phillips, 36, said.
“We couldn’t get numbers for the team. A lot of the boys are playing for other invitational teams, and that is fine. I am delighted, it was cool to play.
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“I need to get some fitness in, I’ve been feeling a bit podgy round the waist, so this was a good excuse to run around.
"It was good, because it is good to play with good people, and there are some talented youngsters coming through as well.”
Few people around a buzzing Pitch 2 were aware that Phillips was lining up in the Dragons side - even the opposition.
Dragons were comfortable winners in their opening game, against a Saudi select side made up of Saudi nationals and expatriates based in the Kingdom.
They won 36-7. Phillips played the final pass for a number of the six tries, and kicked a conversion, but it was his defence which caught the eye most – as the opposition attested.
“We had no idea we’d be playing against him,” Ali Dajani, one of three Saudi nationals in the side, said.
“Knowing that he played the level he did, it was interesting. My job in the team is to plough through, and normally it doesn’t take one guy to take me down. When someone knows how to hit, I know about it.”
Playing at Dubai Rugby Sevens is a neat bookend to Phillips’ playing days. He had played at the old Exiles ground in Al Awir with Wales sevens in 2002 when he was making his way in the game.
“It was at the old stadium, and I loved it,” Phillips, who also runs a coaching academy in Dubai, said.
“It was the start of my professional career, really. This can be the end of it as well.”
With Phillips fulfilling playing duties, the job of overseeing the Dragons first-team in the Gulf Men’s League competition has been left to his assistant, Jonny Macdonald.
And Macdonald is also serving a player-coaching capacity. The Abu Dhabi-born former Scotland sevens player is making a comeback of his own, having been forced into retirement by concussion four years ago.
It means he has been reunited in the same team as James Love, who was a teammate of Macdonald’s when the Arabian Gulf played at the World Cup Sevens at this stadium nearly 10 years ago.
“Lovey and I played together years ago for the Arabian Gulf and we have been best mates since,” Macdonald said.
“It is nice to finally play with him again. When we decided on it, he joked that we should get the old team back together.
“It was cleared last year by medical professionals, and I have been wanting to do it for a while – in the lighter form of the game, sevens.
“There are no issues on that side. We weren’t short, but there was a spot open, and I wasn’t taking anyone’s place, so we thought, why not? I am just back up for the weekend.”
Company Fact Box
Company name/date started: Abwaab Technologies / September 2019
Founders: Hamdi Tabbaa, co-founder and CEO. Hussein Alsarabi, co-founder and CTO
Based: Amman, Jordan
Sector: Education Technology
Size (employees/revenue): Total team size: 65. Full-time employees: 25. Revenue undisclosed
Stage: early-stage startup
Investors: Adam Tech Ventures, Endure Capital, Equitrust, the World Bank-backed Innovative Startups SMEs Fund, a London investment fund, a number of former and current executives from Uber and Netflix, among others.
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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Will the pound fall to parity with the dollar?
The idea of pound parity now seems less far-fetched as the risk grows that Britain may split away from the European Union without a deal.
Rupert Harrison, a fund manager at BlackRock, sees the risk of it falling to trade level with the dollar on a no-deal Brexit. The view echoes Morgan Stanley’s recent forecast that the currency can plunge toward $1 (Dh3.67) on such an outcome. That isn’t the majority view yet – a Bloomberg survey this month estimated the pound will slide to $1.10 should the UK exit the bloc without an agreement.
New Prime Minister Boris Johnson has repeatedly said that Britain will leave the EU on the October 31 deadline with or without an agreement, fuelling concern the nation is headed for a disorderly departure and fanning pessimism toward the pound. Sterling has fallen more than 7 per cent in the past three months, the worst performance among major developed-market currencies.
“The pound is at a much lower level now but I still think a no-deal exit would lead to significant volatility and we could be testing parity on a really bad outcome,” said Mr Harrison, who manages more than $10 billion in assets at BlackRock. “We will see this game of chicken continue through August and that’s likely negative for sterling,” he said about the deadlocked Brexit talks.
The pound fell 0.8 per cent to $1.2033 on Friday, its weakest closing level since the 1980s, after a report on the second quarter showed the UK economy shrank for the first time in six years. The data means it is likely the Bank of England will cut interest rates, according to Mizuho Bank.
The BOE said in November that the currency could fall even below $1 in an analysis on possible worst-case Brexit scenarios. Options-based calculations showed around a 6.4 per cent chance of pound-dollar parity in the next one year, markedly higher than 0.2 per cent in early March when prospects of a no-deal outcome were seemingly off the table.
Bloomberg
The biog
Hometown: Cairo
Age: 37
Favourite TV series: The Handmaid’s Tale, Black Mirror
Favourite anime series: Death Note, One Piece and Hellsing
Favourite book: Designing Brand Identity, Fifth Edition
The rules on fostering in the UAE
A foster couple or family must:
- be Muslim, Emirati and be residing in the UAE
- not be younger than 25 years old
- not have been convicted of offences or crimes involving moral turpitude
- be free of infectious diseases or psychological and mental disorders
- have the ability to support its members and the foster child financially
- undertake to treat and raise the child in a proper manner and take care of his or her health and well-being
- A single, divorced or widowed Muslim Emirati female, residing in the UAE may apply to foster a child if she is at least 30 years old and able to support the child financially
From exhibitions to the battlefield
In 2016, the Shaded Dome was awarded with the 'De Vernufteling' people's choice award, an annual prize by the Dutch Association of Consulting Engineers and the Royal Netherlands Society of Engineers for the most innovative project by a Dutch engineering firm.
It was assigned by the Dutch Ministry of Defence to modify the Shaded Dome to make it suitable for ballistic protection. Royal HaskoningDHV, one of the companies which designed the dome, is an independent international engineering and project management consultancy, leading the way in sustainable development and innovation.
It is driving positive change through innovation and technology, helping use resources more efficiently.
It aims to minimise the impact on the environment by leading by example in its projects in sustainable development and innovation, to become part of the solution to a more sustainable society now and into the future.
