DUBAI // A UAE Armed Forces soldier who followed his wife to a villa after he became suspicious of her behaviour was in court today, charged with assaulting her and two other women with a plastic stick.
AB, 30, an Emirati, lost his temper when he saw his wife half-naked at a woman's villa in Mirdiff, the Dubai Court of Misdemeanours heard today. He assaulted his wife, the villa's owner and another woman who was there, the court heard.
AB was also charged with trespassing. When he appeared in court, he confessed to entering the villa and assaulting a Moroccan woman but denied assaulting his wife.
According to his testimony in prosecution records, AB said he had been married to his Emirati wife, NE, 29, for ten years and that the couple had three daughters together. But, he said, her behaviour had changed recently.
He said she had started earning money from unknown sources after his financial condition had worsened.
"In August 2011, she left the house after I prevented her from travelling," he said, adding that a friend of his wife's called him and said that his wife worked in prostitution.
AB further testified that his wife had started driving a Chevrolet four-wheel-drive, and had claimed that she received it as a gift.
AB started following his wife around and saw her leaving her father's house in Sharjah on November 22 last year, heading to a villa in Mirdiff.
"I saw a Porsche in front of the villa where my wife went and saw two women leaving with the driver," he said, adding that he called police on the spot, but when officers arrived, he asked them to remain away until he got his wife outside the villa.
A Moroccan woman opened the door for him and told him his wife was upstairs.
"I walked in as police watched and found my wife half-naked," he said, adding that he assaulted his wife with a small, plastic stick.
"She ran away and two women attacked me," he said, explaining that he was defending himself against the other two women, but had not initiated the assault as per the charges sheet.
His wife denied his allegations and said she met with AE, 35, the Emirati who owned the villa, a day before the incident at a school in Sharjah, and they had a chat about AE's "beautiful" abaya.
"I went to her house to check on the designs of her abayas to have some designed the same for me," NE said in court records.
AE told prosecutors that the defendant forced open the villa door after she tried to prevent him from entering and assaulted his wife with the stick. When she tried to break them apart to help his wife take shelter in one of the rooms, he also assaulted AE with the stick on her shoulder and leg.
The wife said in court records that she was trying on some of the abayas when her husband suddenly arrived and beat her up.
The next hearing will be on March 26.
salamir@thenational.ae
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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.
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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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