DUBAI //Adventurer Fareed Lafta is a trained cosmonaut with thousands of skydives and base jumps to his name – but his next world record attempt is distinctly more down-to-earth.
The Iraq-born Dubai resident hopes to create the world’s largest symbol of peace out of buttons.
Mr Lafta, 33, will begin his mission armed with 1.2 million red, white, green and black buttons on March 2.
By March 9 he hopes to have completed a dove, measuring 19 metres squared, at Burj Plaza on Downtown Dubai’s Emaar Boulevard.
“Peace is not made by politicians or celebrities or me, or even Angelina Jolie,” he said. “It is made by society. It’s by choice.”
Mr Lafta has invited school pupils and university students to help him place the buttons.
He said there were 100 volunteers lined up for the event but there was “always room for more”.
“We don’t need to go to a place of conflict to promote peace,” he said. “Actually, we can promote a successful society as a role model for sustainable peace.
“I think Dubai is one of the best places for that because we have more than 200 nationalities and a lot of different politics, ideologies and religions here, but everybody is happy to live beside each other.”
Mr Lafta experienced the ravages of war first hand during his time in Iraq. In 2004, he was shot in the leg in Baghdad while his brother was kidnapped (and later released) by insurgents.
“When it happened, they came in three cars – 10 men,” he said. “They were shooting and shooting and the army just ran away. It was noon and there were thousands of people but everyone just ran.
“They came to him, put him in the trunk, shot me and I was left on the ground.”
Today, Mr Lafta uses his daredevilry to promote peace, hoping others do not experience what he did.
His button for peace project already has the support of the Dubai Government, Dubai Sports Council and the Peace and Sport charity in Monaco.
Now Mr Lafta hopes representatives from Guinness World Records are equally supportive.
It is not his first attempt at entering the book of records. Last year he was listed for skydiving with the biggest flag.
Mr Lafta has nurtured these kinds of ambitions since he was very young.
“I was jumping off the cupboards since I was two,” he said. “I always thought I could fly.”
His first port of call after moving to Dubai was Al Boom Marine’s shop on Jumeirah Beach Road, where he trained for a scuba diving instructors licence.
When he was not in the water, he was climbing rocks, racing Suzuki bikes at the Dubai Autodrome, learning to skydive in Umm Al Quwain – living his dream.
“My parents thought I was possessed,” Mr Lafta joked.
In 2008, he made the record books by flying to the peak of Mount Everest and jumping from a height of nine kilometres.
“It was amazing to be at the roof of the world,” he said of the dive, which had to be completed with an oxygen mask. “It was like total Nirvana.”
A year later he made the Jump of Peace over Iraq, the first civilian sky dive into Baghdad.
That was followed by another in Kabul, Afghanistan.
“It was the stupidest thing I did. With a huge red canopy, I could have been shot any time,” Mr Lafta said.
His antics drew the attention of the Arab Union for Astronomy and Space Sciences, and he was selected for training to become the first Arab in space.
Mr Lafta has yet to make it to the stars, but he did co-pilot a MiG 29 to the edge of space.
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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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