A hijacked van caused a security alert in which Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney was taken off stage by officials during a speech in Belfast on Friday. The area was evacuated.
The driver was ordered at gunpoint to drive to the venue in north Belfast, one of the event's organisers said. Mr Coveney was driven away from the venue in his government car after leaving the stage.
"There is a security alert and the PSNI (Police Service of Northern Ireland) are currently assessing the situation. Everyone has had to evacuate the centre," Tim Attwood, secretary of the Hume Foundation, the event organiser, said.
A spokesperson for Coveney said the minister and his team were safe and had been taken to a secure location.
The PSNI said police are in attendance at the scene where a 400-metre (yard) exclusion zone was in place.
Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Brandon Lewis sent “solidarity” to the Irish Foreign Affairs Minister after an event he was speaking at in Belfast was cancelled due to a security alert.
Simon Coveney was speaking at the event organised by the John and Pat Hume Foundation in Belfast when he abruptly ended his speech and was ushered from the room.
The Houben Centre, on the Crumlin Road, has been evacuated.
Mr Lewis tweeted: “I am aware of reports of an ongoing security alert in Belfast.
“I am being kept up to date and I am in regular contact with the PSNI.
“Solidarity with Simon Coveney and all those impacted.”
The driver was in tears inside the venue after alerting security officials to the incident and apologising to attendees for being forced to drive to the site, the Reuters journalist said.
Mr Coveney said on Twitter he was "saddened and frustrated" that someone had been attacked and victimised and that his thoughts were with the driver.
"I spoke to the poor man whose van was hijacked … He's lost his memory. He's traumatised. It's just unreal," Father Aidan O'Kane, the manager of the Houben Centre where the event was being held, told Reuters.
A funeral in the adjacent church also had to be evacuated, O'Kane said.
The incident comes three days after the United Kingdom lowered its Northern Ireland-related terrorism threat level for the first time in more than a decade, with police saying operations against Irish nationalist militants were making attacks less likely.
A small group of militants opposed to a 1998 peace deal that ended Northern Ireland's "Troubles" remain active and carry out occasional attacks.
Their capacity is tiny relative to the three-decade conflict between Irish nationalists seeking unification with the Irish Republic and the British Army and pro-British loyalists determined to keep Northern Ireland under British rule.
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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.”
Heather, the Totality
Matthew Weiner,
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