A young Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid. The Ruler of Dubai was born in Sheikh Saeed Al Maktoum House in Al Shindagha on July 15, 1949.
Dubai in 1950. Al Fahidi Fort in Bur Dubai can be seen in the foreground, with Deira in the middle-right on the other side of the creek. Al Shindagha (left) and Al Ras (right) are in the background across the creek again from Deira.
A 19-year-old Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, pictured at Mons Officer Cadet School - a British military training establishment that closed in 1972, transferring its responsibilities to Sandhurst.
Fishermen dock in Dubai harbour in 1960.
Pictured in the 1970s, Sheikh Mohammed was at the centre of efforts to build the UAE up following unification.
Dubai Creek in 1976. By then, Dubai was becoming one of the Arab world's most developed and important commercial centres.
Sheikh Rashid, Ruler of Dubai, with his son, a 28-year-old Sheikh Mohammed, in 1977.
An aerial view of Dubai's Trade Centre and Sheikh Zayed Road in 1978.
Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, aged 34, in Lexington, Kentucky.
Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid walks among spectators in the royal enclosure at Royal Ascot in Berkshire, UK, in 1985.
2G66N56 Dubai 1984, United Arab Emirates. Corniche alongside The Creek, Hotels and Office Buildings to the Right.
Sheikh Zayed, the Founding Father, and Sheikh Mohammed watch the final race of the annual camel festival at Nad Al Sheba in Dubai in April 1996.
Aerial view of the luxury Burj Al Arab and Jumeirah Beach hotels in Dubai taken in 1999.
Sheikh Mohammed takes a break during a 100-kilometre horse race in Cairo in May 2000. Sheikh Mohammed won with a riding time of five hours and 34 minutes.
Dubai's coastline, near the creek, in January 2004.
Sheikh Mohammed and Britain's Queen Elizabeth II greet hundreds of spectators at Emirates Palace after they unveiled a commemorative plaque to celebrate the commencement of construction of the Zayed National Museum in November 2010.
Sheikh Mohammed witnesses the installation of the final piece of the facade at the Museum of the Future in Dubai.
Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, and Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid witness the arrival of the Hope probe in orbit around Mars from the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre in Dubai in July 2020.
Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid and Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed open Al Wasl Plaza at the Expo 2020 site in Dubai.
Dubai. The Museum of the Future, currently under construction, can be seen on Sheikh Zayed Road.
In this large courtyard house, now a historic monument, the Vice President and Prime Minister grew up with his brothers and father Sheikh Rashid. His grandfather, Sheikh Saeed bin Hasher Al Maktoum, was the Ruler of Dubai, the longest serving in the emirate’s history.
As a child, Sheikh Mohammed lived in a world of wind towers and barasti homes. The abra ferries that linked Bur Dubai and Deira were propelled by muscle and oars.
There were no bridges. Only the smaller dhows could enter the creek harbour, blocked over the years by ever deepening sandbars.
Sheikh Saeed Al Maktoum House, where Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid was born in 1949. It now houses a museum. Pawan Singh / The National
This was a Dubai almost untouched by the 20th century but, as the future Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai began his education, change would soon be coming.
In 1958, Sheikh Rashid succeeded his father, implementing the ambitious plan created by the civil engineering company Sir William Halcrow & Partners for transforming the city.
As the young sheikh grew towards adulthood, so his city expanded. The new airport opened in 1960, not long after his 11th birthday, and in 1963, now a teenager, he witnessed the completion of Al Maktoum Bridge, the first over the Creek.
By his 19th birthday, in 1968, Sheikh Mohammed had trained at a British military college and was already at his father’s side as negotiations began with Sheikh Zayed for the formation of the UAE.
A 19-year-old Sheikh Mohammed in Mons Officer Cadet School in Aldershot, the UK in 1968. Wam
That year, he became the world’s youngest defence minister and was appointed the head of Dubai Police and Public Security force.
In 1971, he turned 21, only months before the birth of the UAE on December 2. Dubai was also accelerating towards a bright future, with the opening of Port Rashid in 1972. The city’s population, less than 20,000 in the year of his birth, had now topped 100,000.
It had more than doubled again by 1979, as Sheikh Mohammed turned 30. The city’s skyline was transforming with the opening of the World Trade Centre, the tallest building in the Middle East, while the Metropolitan Hotel welcomed its first guests that year.
Jumeirah, once a quiet fishing village, became a desirable residential suburb as the city boundaries expanded, while the journey to Abu Dhabi, formerly tracks in the sand, would shortly be transformed by a tarmac motorway.
For Sheikh Mohammed, his 30th year would be memorable. His wedding was accompanied by a five-day public holiday and celebrations that included the first display by the Police Air Wing flying in formation over Zabeel Palace.
In February 1979, he joined his father to welcome Queen Elizabeth II on her first state visit to the UAE, where she formally opened the Dubai Dry Docks and the new port at Jebel Ali.
Over the next decade, Dubai’s population soared past 500,000. The city became a thriving international destination with the creation of Emirates Airline in 1985, and events like the Dubai Desert Classic tournament, held at the first grass course in the Middle East, the Emirates Golf Course, which opened in 1988.
Dubai's corniche alongside The Creek, with hotels and office buildings to the right, pictured in 1984.
With his health failing for the last years of the decade, Sheikh Rashid died in October 1990. He was succeeded by his eldest son, Sheikh Maktoum bin Rashid, with Sheikh Mohammed appointed Crown Prince in 1995.
The position allowed Sheikh Mohammed a leading role in the development of Dubai. He took responsibility for the airport and oil industry and merged Port Rashid and Jebel Ali to create Dubai Ports Authority, now DP World, one of the world’s most successful companies.
Increasingly, Sheikh Mohammed looked to the future of Dubai, recognising early the potential of the internet and the digital age, ordering all government services to move online in 1999.
But it is the Burj Al Arab that is Sheikh Mohammed’s most visible legacy of those years. As Crown Prince, he took personal charge of the project, which he saw as an icon for the city to rival the Sydney Opera House or Eiffel Tower.
Sheikh Mohammed’s hand-on approach to the project even extended to the selection of the hotel’s doorknobs. By September 1999, only two months after his 50th birthday, the Burj Al Arab was open, its now familiar sail shape a confirmation that Dubai was leading holiday destination.
In January 2006, Sheikh Maktoum died unexpectedly on a visit to Australia. Sheikh Mohammed was now Ruler of Dubai and Vice President of the UAE. In February, he was nominated as Prime Minister.
The pace of Dubai’s expansion has quickened under his rule. As a rival to the Burj Al Arab, the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa was completed in 2009.
Colourful fireworks mark the opening of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai on January 4, 2010.
In the same year, as Sheikh Mohammed turned 60, came the opening of the Dubai Metro and Dubai Mall.
In the decade that proceeded it, the population of Dubai rose from 1.7 million to approaching three million today. Its boundaries extend ever further and not only on land.
The Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre sent the UAE’s first astronaut into space as the Ruler turned 70. Earlier this year, the space centre’s Hope probe began orbiting Mars.
As Sheikh Mohammed turns 72 on July 15, he can look forward to the opening of Dubai Expo in less than three months. There are plans to make a quarter of the city’s journeys autonomous by 2030. It is a long way from the abra rowing boats he once watched from his family home as a boy, who always dreamt bigger.
The Nobel Prize was created by wealthy Swedish chemist and entrepreneur Alfred Nobel.
In his will he dictated that the bulk of his estate should be used to fund "prizes to those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind".
Nobel is best known as the inventor of dynamite, but also wrote poetry and drama and could speak Russian, French, English and German by the age of 17. The five original prize categories reflect the interests closest to his heart.
Nobel died in 1896 but it took until 1901, following a legal battle over his will, before the first prizes were awarded.
Qosty Byogaani
Starring: Hani Razmzi, Maya Nasir and Hassan Hosny
The company offers payments/bribes to win key contracts in the Middle East
May 2017
The UK SFO officially opens investigation into Petrofac’s use of agents, corruption, and potential bribery to secure contracts
September 2021
Petrofac pleads guilty to seven counts of failing to prevent bribery under the UK Bribery Act
October 2021
Court fines Petrofac £77 million for bribery. Former executive receives a two-year suspended sentence
December 2024
Petrofac enters into comprehensive restructuring to strengthen the financial position of the group
May 2025
The High Court of England and Wales approves the company’s restructuring plan
July 2025
The Court of Appeal issues a judgment challenging parts of the restructuring plan
August 2025
Petrofac issues a business update to execute the restructuring and confirms it will appeal the Court of Appeal decision
October 2025
Petrofac loses a major TenneT offshore wind contract worth €13 billion. Holding company files for administration in the UK. Petrofac delisted from the London Stock Exchange
November 2025
180 Petrofac employees laid off in the UAE
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.”
Company profile
Company: Verity
Date started: May 2021
Founders: Kamal Al-Samarrai, Dina Shoman and Omar Al Sharif
Based: Dubai
Sector: FinTech
Size: four team members
Stage: Intially bootstrapped but recently closed its first pre-seed round of $800,000
Investors: Wamda, VentureSouq, Beyond Capital and regional angel investors
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.
