A nurse comforts a patient at the Great Ormond Street Hospital, the UK’s best-known children’s hospital. Dylan Martinez / Reuters
A nurse comforts a patient at the Great Ormond Street Hospital, the UK’s best-known children’s hospital. Dylan Martinez / Reuters

Sheikha Fatima's Zayed Centre for Research into Rare Disease in Children celebrates milestone in London



Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH), the world's most famous children's hospital, celebrated reaching a crucial milestone in the construction of the Zayed Centre for Research into Rare Disease in Children as the building reached its highest point.

A ceremony was held to mark the occasion attended by Sulaiman Hamid Al Mazrouei, UAE Ambassador to the United Kingdom, Professor Maha Barakat, Advisor to the Executive Council of the Government of Abu Dhabi and a number of officials from the Government of Abu Dhabi.

The centre was made possible thanks to a generous £60 million donation from Sheikha Fatima bint Mubarak, the only surviving wife of the founder of the UAE.

When it is completed at the end of 2018, the Zayed Centre will be the first purpose-built centre of its kind in the world. It will bring together hundreds of clinicians and researchers under one roof to drive forward new treatments and cures for children with rare diseases, and will support translational research that focuses on taking discoveries from the lab bench to the patients’ bedsides.

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During the ceremony, Mr Al Mazrouei expressed his gratitude to Sheikha Fatima for her generous support locally and internationally. He also thanked the partners and shareholders of the centre for their ongoing commitment to the project.

He said: "The Zayed Centre for Research into Rare Disease in Children is an innovative and collaborative partnership that brings together world-class medical and scientific expertise, which will have an immediate and lasting impact on the lives of many children from around the world."

GOSH sees children from more than 90 countries and specialises in the treatment of children with rare diseases. These include children from the UAE who come to the hospital to be treated for a range of conditions including rare heart and neurological conditions.

Work has now begun on the interior of the centre, which will house state-of-the-art laboratories and highly-specialised facilities for the development of new gene and stem cell therapies as well as a much-needed outpatient clinic.

The construction of the building involved the demolition of an office block built in the 1960's, which was being used by the University of London and had been disused for some time. Designed by award-winning architects Stanton Williams, construction of the new building began in 2017 by Swedish contractor Skanska, who is responsible for the construction, mechanical and electrical fit-out of the facility.

The topping out event was celebrated with a traditional Scandinavian ‘flying of the fir’ in which a fir tree was flown over the building by tower crane, as well as a final pouring of cement, in a rooftop ceremony.

Skewed figures

In the village of Mevagissey in southwest England the housing stock has doubled in the last century while the number of residents is half the historic high. The village's Neighbourhood Development Plan states that 26% of homes are holiday retreats. Prices are high, averaging around £300,000, £50,000 more than the Cornish average of £250,000. The local average wage is £15,458. 

Mia Man’s tips for fermentation

- Start with a simple recipe such as yogurt or sauerkraut

- Keep your hands and kitchen tools clean. Sanitize knives, cutting boards, tongs and storage jars with boiling water before you start.

- Mold is bad: the colour pink is a sign of mold. If yogurt turns pink as it ferments, you need to discard it and start again. For kraut, if you remove the top leaves and see any sign of mold, you should discard the batch.

- Always use clean, closed, airtight lids and containers such as mason jars when fermenting yogurt and kraut. Keep the lid closed to prevent insects and contaminants from getting in.

 

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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Museum of the Future in numbers
  •  78 metres is the height of the museum
  •  30,000 square metres is its total area
  •  17,000 square metres is the length of the stainless steel facade
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Arantxa Rus v Xiyu Wang

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Karolina Muchova v Danka Kovinic

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Mona Barthel v Anastasia Gasanova

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Kateryna Bondarenko v Yafan Wang

Aliaksandra Sasnovich v Anna Bondar

Bianca Turati v Yaroslava Shvedova

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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.”

A State of Passion

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COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
 
Started: 2021
 
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
 
Based: Tunisia 
 
Sector: Water technology 
 
Number of staff: 22 
 
Investment raised: $4 million 
The lowdown

Rating: 4/5