Minneapolis council holds crucial vote with Muslim members away for Eid

With three Muslim council members away to observe the Eid Al Adha holiday this week, the Minneapolis City Council narrowly voted to kill a measure that would have put a rent control question on the ballot this autumn.

Most of the council supports a 3 per cent annual residential rent cap. But with Aisha Chughtai, Jeremiah Ellison and Jamal Osman off on Wednesday, the council voted not to move the measure forward, Minnesota Public Radio reported.

“Islamophobia,” one person in the audience yelled during the meeting, the Star Tribune reported.

Such accusations raged on Twitter, while at the same time, rent control opponents expressed relief that the issue was off the table.

“Regardless your views on rent stabilisation, the decent thing for council leadership to do today would have been to exercise [with] ease their ability to take up this policy item at a near future time, when all could participate without religious exclusion. It's that simple,” council member Mitra Jalali said in a tweet.

The Wednesday meeting was scheduled more than a year ago to accommodate Eid, which at the time had been predicted to fall on Thursday, Minnesota Public Radio reported. But the date is subject to change depending on lunar observations.

Minnesota state attorney general Keith Ellison took note: “I'm deeply disappointed at the insensitivity of taking a critical vote without Muslim members present due to Eid celebrations.”

According to City Clerk Casey Carl, the first time anyone raised a concern about Eid was on Monday – too late to change the date of the council meeting under state law, the Star Tribune reported.

Ms Carl apologised, but said that for years the city clerk’s office has relied on council members to make it aware of religious or cultural conflicts.

In a statement released after the vote, Mr Ellison, Mr Osman and Ms Chughtai criticised the vote as going against “the spirit of inclusion Minneapolis prides itself on”.

“Muslims have been serving on the Minneapolis City Council for a decade now and thousands of Muslims live in our city. Our holy days and celebrations are not unknown or mysterious,” the leaders said.

They said council leadership could have scheduled the meeting at a later date, delayed the vote to the next full council meeting or advanced the policy to a committee for further changes.

Associated Press contributed to this report

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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