Picture shows the oil tanker Arrilah-I Courtesy of ADNATCO
Picture shows the oil tanker Arrilah-I Courtesy of ADNATCO
Picture shows the oil tanker Arrilah-I Courtesy of ADNATCO
Picture shows the oil tanker Arrilah-I Courtesy of ADNATCO

UAE

Special Forces rescue UAE ship from pirates

Crew safe after UAE forces arrest pirates.

Kareem Shaheen
Kareem Shaheen

April 03, 2011

  • English
  • Arabic

ABU DHABI // UAE Special Forces stormed a hijacked Dubai-bound ship yesterday, rescuing the crew and arresting all the pirates who had seized it.

Special counter-terrorism units, with support from the Air Force and Air Defence, as well as the US Fifth Fleet, stormed the MV Arrilah-I, a bulk carrier en route from Australia to Jebel Ali, the Armed Forces General Headquarters said in a statement.

The ship was hijacked in the Arabian Sea, east of Oman, early on Friday.

The military said the vessel was now headed towards Emirati shores, guarded by UAE Special Forces. The pirates will be handed over to the Ministry of Interior once they arrive in Dubai.

The Armed Forces said the rescue showed the UAE's commitment to acting "firmly" in the face of piracy, adding that the country would "not succumb to such threats".

The 37,000-tonne ship is owned by the Abu Dhabi National Tanker Company and the National Gas Shipping Company, two subsidiaries of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc).

"We have been assured that all crew members are safe and in good health," the companies said in a statement on WAM, the state news agency, before the announcement that the rescue had been completed.

"The company management is monitoring the situation closely in co-ordination with relevant government authorities."

The attack was the second on a UAE-flagged ship in recent days. The tanker MV Zirku was hijacked last week by pirates using rifles and rocket-propelled grenades.

The UAE is a shareholder of the oil tanker, which is owned by the Kuwaiti government. The European Union EUNAVFOR naval patrol force said at the time the ship was on its way to Singapore from Sudan. It was attacked 250 nautical miles south-east of Salalah, Oman, in the eastern part of the Gulf of Aden.

The UAE will host an international conference on fighting piracy later this month.

Pirate attacks are estimated to cost between US$7 billion (Dh25.7bn) and $12bn annually in losses to the global economy, according to a December study by the One Earth Future Foundation.

Last month, the UAE called for a comprehensive international strategy to aid Somalia and fight piracy off the country's coast, as well as the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean, saying pirates have inflicted grave damage on international trade and the transfer of humanitarian aid to Africa.

In a statement to the UN Security Council, the UAE, which said it had been harmed by piracy, also called for a mechanism to prosecute and punish captured pirates, measures that have so far eluded the international community.

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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