A bomb blast targeting a busy shopping district in Lahore killed at least two people, including a child, 9, and wounded 22 others on Thursday, Pakistani police and officials said.
A spokesman for the Baloch Nationalist Army, one of several ethnic separatist groups waging an insurgency for years in south-west Pakistan, claimed responsibility for the attack in a Twitter post.
"Initial investigations show that it was a time-controlled device on a motorbike which was the cause of the blast," Rana Arif, spokesman for Lahore police, told AFP.
The explosion took place in old Lahore's busy Anarkali shopping district, damaging several motorbikes and upturning market stalls.
Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan expressed regret over the "loss of precious human lives", a spokesman for his office said.
A spokesman for the Baloch Nationalist Army said it was responsible. "This attack targeted bank employees. A detailed statement will be issued soon," he said.
The mineral-rich region of Balochistan, bordering Afghanistan and Iran, is the largest of Pakistan's four provinces, but its roughly seven million inhabitants have long complained they do not receive a fair share of its gas and mineral wealth.
China is investing in the area under a $54 billion project known as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), upgrading infrastructure, power and transport links between its far-western Xinjiang region and Pakistan's Gwadar port.
Baloch separatists have previously claimed responsibility for several attacks on CPEC projects, and thousands of Pakistani security personnel are stationed in the region to counter the violence.
Pakistan has suffered a string of blasts and attacks on police since December, when a truce between the government and Pakistan's Taliban lapsed.
Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) – a home-grown movement that shares common roots with the Afghan Taliban – has claimed responsibility for most recent attacks.
The TTP said this week it was responsible for a deadly shoot-out in Islamabad on Monday night – a rare attack by the militants in the heavily guarded capital.
A police officer was killed and two others injured when two TTP gunmen opened fire on a police checkpoint from a motorbike.
Police said both attackers were killed and Pakistan's Interior Ministry gave a warning of the potential for further violence.
Pakistan's government announced late last year it had entered a month-long truce with the TTP, facilitated by Afghanistan's Taliban, but that expired on December 9 after peace talks failed to make progress.
The TTP has been blamed for hundreds of suicide bomb attacks and kidnappings across the country and for a while held sway over large tracts of the nation's rugged tribal belt, imposing a radical version of Sharia.
But after the massacre in 2014 of nearly 150 children at a Peshawar school, the Pakistan military sent vast numbers of troops into TTP strongholds and crushed the movement, forcing its fighters to retreat to Afghanistan.
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David Haye record
Total fights: 32
Wins: 28
Wins by KO: 26
Losses: 4
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.”
