A four-storey car park in New York City collapsed on Tuesday, killing one worker, injuring five and crushing cars, as concrete floors fell on top of each other, officials said.
Rescue teams used robotic devices after firefighters were told to pull back from the unstable structure in lower Manhattan’s Financial District, near the New York Stock Exchange and Pace University.
Officials said they believed all victims had been accounted for.
Pace University student Jadess Speller told AP the collapse “felt like an earthquake".
It was "like the earth opened up inside, like that’s how violent it was", she said.
One vehicle landed on its end in the garage entrance, a photo posted by Mayor Eric Adams' office showed.
Searches of cars still inside the structure continued on Tuesday evening, Fire Department Chief of Operations John Esposito told AP.
One garage employee was rescued after being trapped on an upper floor, he said.
“He was conscious and alert and moving around, calling us. He just couldn’t get down,” Mr Esposito said.
Four of the injured were taken to hospital and in stable conditions, and the fifth refused medical attention, he said.
The garage caved in at around 4pm local time, near to City Hall and the Brooklyn Bridge.
Pace evacuated an adjacent dormitory and classroom building and cancelled all evening classes as it assessed the buildings' safety.
School officials sent the displaced students to a student centre while working out other accommodation.
Don Mulligan was on the 17th floor of a nearby hotel when he heard a roar like a jet flying overhead and felt the high-rise sway.
“You knew something was happening,” Mr Mulligan, of Cincinnati, told AP. The hotel was evacuated, he said.
'Completely unstable'
The cause of the collapse was not immediately clear.
City Buildings Department records show the three-story structure has been a garage since at least the 1920s, and there are no recent permits for construction, AP reported.
Messages were left for a parking company that lists the garage as one of its properties.
The collapse left the building “completely unstable,” Mr Adams said.
Mr Esposito said firefighters had to pull out because of the danger, conducting searches instead with a drone and robotic dog.
The building was “all the way pancaked, collapsed all the way to the cellar floor”, New York City's acting buildings commissioner Kazimir Vilenchik said.
"It all happened so fast," Thai Nguyen, 35, who lives in Chinatown and is a manager of the nearby Kollective Klub, told Reuters.
"Our store is two buildings from the parking garage, and we also have a hotel next to us. People ran inside asking if they could take refuge inside our store."
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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Should late investors consider cryptocurrencies?
Wealth managers recommend late investors to have a balanced portfolio that typically includes traditional assets such as cash, government and corporate bonds, equities, commodities and commercial property.
They do not usually recommend investing in Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies due to the risk and volatility associated with them.
“It has produced eye-watering returns for some, whereas others have lost substantially as this has all depended purely on timing and when the buy-in was. If someone still has about 20 to 25 years until retirement, there isn’t any need to take such risks,” Rupert Connor of Abacus Financial Consultant says.
He adds that if a person is interested in owning a business or growing a property portfolio to increase their retirement income, this can be encouraged provided they keep in mind the overall risk profile of these assets.
