Vera Lynn and Jimmy Saville, right, attend the September 2005 unveiling of a sculpture at Victoria Embankment in central London to mark the 65th anniversary of the Battle of Britain.
Vera Lynn and Jimmy Saville, right, attend the September 2005 unveiling of a sculpture at Victoria Embankment in central London to mark the 65th anniversary of the Battle of Britain.

BBC under pressure over Jimmy Savile claims



LONDON // Sir Jimmy Savile, the BBC television icon who died last year at the age of 84, was never considered a normal man.

There were the oversized sunglasses, the hyper-bling gold necklaces and colourful tracksuits. The bizarre catchphrases, such as "How's about that then?" and "Now then, now then". The persistent questions about his solitary bachelor existence.

But the British public loves an eccentric and, from the 1960s until the 1990s, he was one of the biggest names at Britain's state-owned broadcaster and built a reputation as a tireless supporter of hospital and children's charities.

Last October, thousands turned out to watch as his gold-plated coffin was carried through his northern-England hometown of Leeds.

But in the past two weeks, the adulation has soured into revulsion.

A documentary shown on the Britain's commercial television station ITV1, hosted by a child protection expert, featured interviews with five women, now in their 40s and 50s, who detailed the sexual abuse they had suffered at the hands of Savile as young girls.

The documentary triggered such a torrent of similar allegations that one BBC presenter, Jeremy Vine, yesterday said Savile could become known as "one of the most serious predatory paedophiles in criminal history".

The police have now officially opened investigations into 12 cases of abuse, but have been inundated with calls since the programme aired. Scotland Yard is pursuing close to 350 lines of inquiry and estimate that, so far, there are 60 cases to examine.

Many are surprised that the stories are emerging only now. It has been revealed that Savile faced six sexual abuse investigations by police, the first dating back to 1959 when he was a nightclub owner in Leeds. All were dropped due to lack of evidence.

It appears his reputation for charity work deterred almost all victims from speaking out and blinded colleagues to his actions.

With Savile dead, much public anger has been directed at the BBC. The broadcaster has been forced to launch an investigation into why one of its flagship current affairs programmes, Newsnight, dropped a 10-minute filmed investigation of the allegations against Savile in December. Its editor, Peter Rippon, has said the report was dropped due to a lack of concrete evidence.

The BBC's director-general, George Entwistle, who was the head of commissioning and broadcasting at the time, will be questioned over his decision to go ahead with a series of programmes celebrating Savile's life at Christmas, despite being warned about the Newsnight film.

Mr Entwistle, barely two months into the top job, claims he had no knowledge of the film's content and did not ask because he did not want to be seen to interfere in the "independence of news and current affairs". The claim has been described as "barely credible" by one of the BBC's own media analysts.

In the ITV documentary, one woman described repeated sexual encounters with Savile when she was 15 years old, including intercourse in his dressing room at BBC Broadcasting House in the 1970s.

"It happened on a number of occasions," she said during the film. "He would do the sex act really quickly before anyone else came in."

So trusted was the presenter that he was given gold-plated keys to Broadmoor secure mental hospital in the late 1980s as a reward for his volunteer work and was in charge of a task force overseeing management restructuring at the hospital. There are claims he molested at least one 17-year-old patient.

His victims say their silence stemmed from fear and confusion over the huge gulf between his public and private personas.

"Being a teenager and not understanding things, you do blame yourself," said one victim on the documentary. "There was always an air of - not exactly menace - but an air that he had power and contacts and you wouldn't want to mess with him."

One woman from Duncroft Manor, a school for troubled teenagers that Savile visited frequently, said she had tried to protest after Savile molested her in his caravan, but was put in solitary confinement at the school for two to three days until she retracted the allegations.

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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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