An Emirates flight that was heading to Washington flew at a low altitude as it took off from Dubai, a preliminary report by the UAE’s aviation authority into the incident has said.
No one was injured in flight EK231 on December 19, which landed uneventfully at Washington's Dulles International Airport, but the aircraft's initial take-off experienced an unexplained shallow climb.
The Boeing 777-300ER flight had 372 people on board, including 354 passengers, 14 cabin crew and four flight crew members.
The report by the General Civil Aviation Authority, which classified the event as a “serious incident”, said the pilot put the plane’s altitude selector to 4,000 feet (1,219 metres), which is standard procedure, having noticed that it was set to 0000 feet.
After the aircraft lifted off, the landing gears were retracted, but the rate of climb was initially low, reaching around 800 feet per minute.
“The commander stated that after lift-off, and during climb, she followed the flight director command,” the GCAA report said.
“However, the aircraft rate of climb reached a maximum of approximately 800 feet per minute. The flight crew were not able to adhere to published climb gradient of the SID (standard instrument departure) due to the shallow climb.”
The report also says that the cockpit voice recorder file was “overwritten”.
Investigations into the incident are ongoing, which will examine the root cause of the shallow climb and crew performance. A final report will be issued in due course.
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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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