SHARJAH // Donna Lyn Quero’s eyes began to moisten as she spoke about what her fellow Mormons had done this Christmas.
Mrs Quero has been a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints for nine years, but she has never experienced anything like this.
Every day, for the 12 days leading up to Christmas, gifts have been mysteriously appearing under her garage door or at her church, a large villa in Sharjah where dozens of Mormons pack into the living room for services on Fridays.
“Sometimes when I open the door the gift is there to surprise me,” said Mrs Quero, whose husband and three children are also Mormons.
On the first day, she received a fresh chicken in a bowl of pears.
“On the second day, there was a card, and when I found it, there was a note, ‘On the second day of Christmas my true love sent to me two turtle doves’, and it said, ‘I can’t find turtle doves, but we love you’,” Mrs Quero said.
“I was crying. I’m just thinking, ‘12 Days of Christmas?’ Who are they, who are they, why are they doing this?”
The Quero family has recently fallen on hard times, and Mrs Quero said she believed her Mormon “brothers and sisters”, as they call each other, were behind the anonymous gift- giving.
Although the 12 days of Christmas is not a church tradition, it is not uncommon for members to band together to spread cheer through “top-secret missions to surprise people with goodies”, according to Lucia Ratliff, an American Mormon who is also a member of the Sharjah ward.
“I think that’s a big part of our religion. Well, not our religion, but the culture is … just doing things anonymously for fun,” said Mrs Ratliff, who is married with four children.
“I think every place I’ve been, there are always people doing that and it’s not an assignment from the church. It’s just how we celebrate, by doing things for people.”
There are also church activities and services leading up to Christmas.
“The biggest and best one occurs in the beginning of December, when there is a special worldwide broadcast from our church leaders [in Salt Lake City, Utah] featuring Christmas-themed talks, stories and beautiful music from the world-renowned Mormon Tabernacle Choir,” she said.
“This is always my favourite event of the year, and it really brings in the Christmas spirit.”
The UAE is home to about 1,500 Mormons, who belong to one of six congregations – two wards each in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, and one ward each in Sharjah and Al Ain.
The Mormons follow scriptures from the Bible as well as their own religious texts, the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants and The Pearl of Great Price.
“I think a lot of people have a misconception about the Mormon Church – that we’re not Christian. But if you look at the official name of the church, it’s the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints; we celebrate Christmas,” said Dr Robert Bateman, president of the Abu Dhabi Stake, which oversees Mormon churches in the UAE, Qatar and Oman.
“We look at Jesus Christ as the saviour of all mankind and we celebrate his birth, I would imagine, in many ways like the other Christians do.”
This year, members of the Sharjah ward decorated a large Christmas tree in the foyer, hosted a traditional Christmas dinner and organised a pageant in which the children dressed up in robes and re-enacted the nativity story from the Bible.
The Christmas service was held on December 19 and was organised by Bishop Jay Johnson and Bridget Palmer, the musical director.
“The main thing is I wanted to sing as much as possible, because there are so many Christmas songs and December is only four weeks long,” said Mrs Palmer, a married American mother of three children.
“So I just crammed in as many songs as I could for all of us to have a chance to sing.”
rpennington@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.
“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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