A mysterious metal monolith has appeared on a heath in the Netherlands after similar objects were found in the US, Romania and Britain, an official said.
Hikers found the object on Sunday on private land near the Kiekenberg nature reserve in northern Friesland province, a spokesman for the Dutch Forestry Commission said.
"We know that it was probably placed this weekend because some hikers who were walking there found it, but we don't know it got there," forestry commission spokesman Imke Boerma told AFP.
Rangers went to check out the object on Monday morning and were still hunting for clues to its provenance.
A similar-looking structure appeared briefly in the Utah desert late last month, then two others cropped up in southern California and Romania days later. Another appeared on a beach on the Isle of Wight off the south coast of England on Sunday.
Photos in Dutch media showed the object in Friesland with a dull silver-coloured surface, standing next to a marshy pool on frosty ground.
Local broadcaster Omrop Fryslan said the Dutch object was not shiny like the other monoliths although it was a similar size and shape.
"I walked up to it, but there was nothing to be seen around the monolith. Just as if it was placed from above," hiker Thijs de Jong, the first person to find the obelisk, told Omrop Fryslan, adding that it would "certainly have needed two or more people" to place it.
The broadcaster said there were suspicions the obelisk could be a stunt by a "New Year's Eve club", a tradition in the north of the Netherlands to draw attention to a village or association.
But it quoted de Jong as saying that there was no such club in the area. "I myself am thinking more of a kind of artist collective that does something like that," he said.
The appearance of the Utah object in late November sparked wild rumours of alien visitations due to a resemblance to the black monolith in the Stanley Kubrick science-fiction film 2001: A Space Odyssey.
An anonymous art collective has taken credit for the Utah installation but no one has claimed responsibility for those in Romania, the Isle of Wight and the Netherlands.
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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.”
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