The US Treasury designated three Iranian entities and six individuals on Wednesday for committing human rights abuses and censorship, in what is the sixth round of sanctions since President Donald Trump left the nuclear deal on May 8.
The department said the sanctions were implemented “in the wake of recent protests by the Iranian people and the regime’s subsequent brutal crackdown”. Washington has imposed the additional measures in a bid to increase economic and political pressure on the Iranian regime.
The three entities designated are semi-official paramilitary group Ansar-e Hezbollah, Evin Prison and Hanista Programming Group.
Ansar-e Hezbollah is identified as an “organisation supported by the Iranian regime that harasses and attacks the Iranian people” and has “been linked to acid attacks against women in the city of Isfahan” who had protested against the mandatory veil.
The statement said Ansar-e Hezbollah “has collaborated with the Basij to violently attack Iranian students with knives, tear gas, and electric batons.” The Basij is a paramilitary force that operates under Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), is designated by the US and has taken part in stifling street protests.
Three individuals operating under Ansar-e Hezbollah, Abdolhamid Mohtasham, Hossein Allahkaram and Hamid Ostad were designated. Mr Ostad was also “implicated in a mob attack against the Saudi Arabia Consulate in Mashhad” in 2016, the statement said.
The Treasury also designated Evin Prison, known for its notorious conditions and human rights abuses. The US government said prisoners held at Evin “are subject to brutal tactics inflicted by prison authorities, including sexual assaults, physical assaults, and electric shock”.
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The Treasury also designated Hanista Programming Group for having “operated, or having directed the operation of, information and communications technology that facilitates computer or network disruption, monitoring, or tracking that could assist in or enable serious human rights abuses by or on behalf of the government of Iran”.
It is accused of “creating and distributing alternative versions of the popular messaging and social media application Telegram that facilitate the Iranian regime’s monitoring and tracking of Iranian and international users”.
Three more individuals were designated in the order. They are Abolhassan Firouzabadi, Abdolsamad Khoramabadi and Abdulali Ali Asgari. The first two “for having engaged in censorship or other activities”, and Mr Ali Asgari as the director of Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), an entity that was designated in 2013, and now being accused of overseeing censorship.
US Secretary of Treasury Steve Mnuchin said the government had focused the sanctions on human rights because “Iran not only exports terrorism and instability across the world, it routinely violates the rights of its own people”.
“The Iranian regime diverts national resources that should belong to the people to fund a massive and expensive censorship apparatus and suppress free speech,” he said.
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.”
