Mitie Care and Custody, a British company that provides security in the overcrowded government-run facility in Manston, reported a profit of £6 million ($6.9m) for the year to March 31, up 13 per cent from the year before.
In its latest accounts, the company, which provides “outsourced custody services” to the UK Home Office, attributed its 35 per cent revenue increase this year to “new contract wins” and “additional projects delivered”.
In a statement to The National, Mitie said it had been appointed by the Home Office to provide security and specialist detention custody officers for the migrant centre.
It added that it was one of a number of companies contracted by the government to provide services at the site, which has fallen under recent scrutiny following revelations of excessive stays of detainees in “dire” conditions.
Manston, a former military base in Kent, opened as a processing centre in February — a month before Mitie Care and Custody’s latest accounts were filed — to handle the growing number of people reaching the UK in small boats.
Migrants are meant to be held there for a maximum of five days while undergoing security and identity checks, but recent reports have revealed that people are being kept there several weeks and in shocking conditions.
Distressing pictures have surfaced showing people reaching through fences in the overcrowded asylum processing centre in Kent after independent border inspector David Neal told MPs last week that he had been left speechless by the “really dangerous” situation there.
On Sunday, about 4,000 people were housed at Manston — more than double the 1,600 the temporary centre was originally designed for — with at least eight cases of diphtheria and a case of MRSA recorded at the former Royal Air Force base.
About 700 had to be moved there on Saturday after a man threw petrol bombs attached to fireworks at a British immigration border force facility in Dover.
On Monday, the Guardian reported that another British company which manages hotels and other accommodation for asylum seekers in the UK had enjoyed bumper earnings.
According to the newspaper, Home Office accommodation providers get better terms on their contracts once the asylum seeker population exceeds 70,000, as it has for more than a year.
Clearsprings Ready Homes, which has a 10-year contract from the UK Home Office to manage housing for asylum seekers across the country, recorded a 600 per cent increase in its 2021 profit to £28m from £4.4m in the year to January 31.
The company’s three directors shared dividends of just under £28m this year, up from £7m in the previous year.
With the highest number of claims for two decades and record delays for asylum seekers awaiting a decision, the backlog of cases to be processed is overwhelming and leading to rapidly increasing costs for the government.
While businesses cash in on the UK’s increasingly bitter migrant crisis, asylum seekers themselves remain caught up in a high-risk and under-resourced system facing a long backlog.
UK Home Secretary Suella Braverman, who is under fire after saying that Britain is facing an “invasion” of immigrants, has been accused of allowing numbers to increase at the Manston processing centre instead of moving people to hotels.
Ms Braverman insisted to MPs that she did not block emergency accommodation for migrants awaiting processing after crossing the English Channel, amid growing questions about her strategy for dealing with the record numbers of people arriving in the UK in small boats.
On Monday, the Conservative MP Sir Roger Gale, whose Kent constituency includes the Manston processing centre, said it had been turned into a “refugee camp” by a “car crash” policy decision by the home secretary to suspend a search for hotel accommodation for new arrivals.
Nevertheless, hotel use is still high with the Home Office spending almost £7m a day on a mix of hotel accommodation and shared housing for asylum seekers and refugees.
Asylum seekers in hotels receive just over £1 a day, or £8.24 a week, to make personal purchases.
Last week, the Commons Home Affairs Committee was told that £5.6 million a day was being spent on hotels for people who have arrived in the UK and have submitted a claim, with an additional £1.2 million paid to house nearly 10,000 Afghan refugees who are still in bridging hotels a year after fleeing the Taliban takeover while long-term accommodation is sought in the UK.
The Home Office has only processed 4 per cent of the asylum claims from migrants who crossed the Channel last year. Of that number, 85 per cent were granted refugee status or other protection status.
Clearsprings, whose contract with the Home Office runs until 2029, said in it latest annual accounts report that “demand for accommodation has remained high” and is “expected to continue at a high level for the foreseeable future”.
Meanwhile, the directors of Mitie Care and Custody, which reported securing three new contracts in its latest accounts, wrote that they “expect the general level of activity to increase” in the year ahead.
MATCH INFO
Uefa Champions League final:
Who: Real Madrid v Liverpool
Where: NSC Olimpiyskiy Stadium, Kiev, Ukraine
When: Saturday, May 26, 10.45pm (UAE)
TV: Match on BeIN Sports
Infiniti QX80 specs
Engine: twin-turbocharged 3.5-liter V6
Power: 450hp
Torque: 700Nm
Price: From Dh450,000, Autograph model from Dh510,000
Available: Now
Will the pound fall to parity with the dollar?
The idea of pound parity now seems less far-fetched as the risk grows that Britain may split away from the European Union without a deal.
Rupert Harrison, a fund manager at BlackRock, sees the risk of it falling to trade level with the dollar on a no-deal Brexit. The view echoes Morgan Stanley’s recent forecast that the currency can plunge toward $1 (Dh3.67) on such an outcome. That isn’t the majority view yet – a Bloomberg survey this month estimated the pound will slide to $1.10 should the UK exit the bloc without an agreement.
New Prime Minister Boris Johnson has repeatedly said that Britain will leave the EU on the October 31 deadline with or without an agreement, fuelling concern the nation is headed for a disorderly departure and fanning pessimism toward the pound. Sterling has fallen more than 7 per cent in the past three months, the worst performance among major developed-market currencies.
“The pound is at a much lower level now but I still think a no-deal exit would lead to significant volatility and we could be testing parity on a really bad outcome,” said Mr Harrison, who manages more than $10 billion in assets at BlackRock. “We will see this game of chicken continue through August and that’s likely negative for sterling,” he said about the deadlocked Brexit talks.
The pound fell 0.8 per cent to $1.2033 on Friday, its weakest closing level since the 1980s, after a report on the second quarter showed the UK economy shrank for the first time in six years. The data means it is likely the Bank of England will cut interest rates, according to Mizuho Bank.
The BOE said in November that the currency could fall even below $1 in an analysis on possible worst-case Brexit scenarios. Options-based calculations showed around a 6.4 per cent chance of pound-dollar parity in the next one year, markedly higher than 0.2 per cent in early March when prospects of a no-deal outcome were seemingly off the table.
Bloomberg
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Analysis
Members of Syria's Alawite minority community face threat in their heartland after one of the deadliest days in country’s recent history. Read more
Skewed figures
In the village of Mevagissey in southwest England the housing stock has doubled in the last century while the number of residents is half the historic high. The village's Neighbourhood Development Plan states that 26% of homes are holiday retreats. Prices are high, averaging around £300,000, £50,000 more than the Cornish average of £250,000. The local average wage is £15,458.
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.”
The most expensive investment mistake you will ever make
When is the best time to start saving in a pension? The answer is simple – at the earliest possible moment. The first pound, euro, dollar or dirham you invest is the most valuable, as it has so much longer to grow in value. If you start in your twenties, it could be invested for 40 years or more, which means you have decades for compound interest to work its magic.
“You get growth upon growth upon growth, followed by more growth. The earlier you start the process, the more it will all roll up,” says Chris Davies, chartered financial planner at The Fry Group in Dubai.
This table shows how much you would have in your pension at age 65, depending on when you start and how much you pay in (it assumes your investments grow 7 per cent a year after charges and you have no other savings).
|
Age
|
$250 a month
|
$500 a month
|
$1,000 a month
|
|
25
|
$640,829
|
$1,281,657
|
$2,563,315
|
|
35
|
$303,219
|
$606,439
|
$1,212,877
|
|
45
|
$131,596
|
$263,191
|
$526,382
|
|
55
|
$44,351
|
$88,702
|
$177,403
|
The biog
Fatima Al Darmaki is an Emirati widow with three children
She has received 46 certificates of appreciation and excellence throughout her career
She won the 'ideal mother' category at the Minister of Interior Awards for Excellence
Her favourite food is Harees, a slow-cooked porridge-like dish made from boiled wheat berries mixed with chicken
Tank warfare
Lt Gen Erik Petersen, deputy chief of programs, US Army, has argued it took a “three decade holiday” on modernising tanks.
“There clearly remains a significant armoured heavy ground manoeuvre threat in this world and maintaining a world class armoured force is absolutely vital,” the general said in London last week.
“We are developing next generation capabilities to compete with and deter adversaries to prevent opportunism or miscalculation, and, if necessary, defeat any foe decisively.”
Batti Gul Meter Chalu
Producers: KRTI Productions, T-Series
Director: Sree Narayan Singh
Cast: Shahid Kapoor, Shraddha Kapoor, Divyenndu Sharma, Yami Gautam
Rating: 2/5
MATCH INFO
England 241-3 (20 ovs)
Malan 130 no, Morgan 91
New Zealand 165 all out (16.5ovs)
Southee 39, Parkinson 4-47
England win by 76 runs
Series level at 2-2
The Dark Blue Winter Overcoat & Other Stories From the North
Edited and Introduced by Sjón and Ted Hodgkinson
Pushkin Press
The specs
Engine: 3.0-litre six-cylinder turbo
Power: 398hp from 5,250rpm
Torque: 580Nm at 1,900-4,800rpm
Transmission: Eight-speed auto
Fuel economy, combined: 6.5L/100km
On sale: December
Price: From Dh330,000 (estimate)
The specs: McLaren 600LT
Price, base: Dh914,000
Engine: 3.8-litre twin-turbo V8
Transmission: Seven-speed automatic
Power: 600hp @ 7,500rpm
Torque: 620Nm @ 5,500rpm
Fuel economy 12.2.L / 100km
Brief scoreline:
Manchester United 2
Rashford 28', Martial 72'
Watford 1
Doucoure 90'
EA Sports FC 26
Publisher: EA Sports
Consoles: PC, PlayStation 4/5, Xbox Series X/S
Rating: 3/5
