ABU DHABI // A power cut at Yas Mall left shops and hundreds of visitors in the dark for more than an hour on Tuesday night.
The lights and escalators suddenly stopped working at around 7pm before power was restored at about 8.45pm.
Police were sent to the mall to ensure the safety of shoppers.
Visitors used light from their mobile phones to illuminate their way in the dark.
“It was quite an eerie scene,” said Manj Marva, a 43-year-old British tourist. “I was at the Fun Works area with my two daughters and they had just got off one of the rides when all of a sudden the lights went off and everything just stopped.”
Mr Marva, who is in the UAE for a family vacation during Christmas, praised the efforts of the staff at the children’s attraction.
“Some of the rides go upside down and it was fortunate that no one was stuck in that position,” he said. “There is a ride that [elevates] people up 15 feet [in the air] and they got stuck, but the staff member climbed up and brought them down.”
His family initally thought the power cut would not last long but they eventually decided to leave.
“I would say there were about 400 to 500 people in the area we were at, and you could see many of them using the lights on their mobile phones to make their way around,” said Mr Marva.
Most of the shops at this point were not allowing people inside, he said. “We made our way towards the exit near Ferrari World and we could see police in the area,” he added.
Police officers, some of whom were wearing high-visibility vests, were at the scene and a helicopter was flying above with its spotlight on the mall at about 8.30pm, said Mr Marva.
“We tried to go back inside to get a taxi from a different part of the mall, but the armed police said we weren’t allowed to go back in,” he said.
His family eventually managed to get a taxi back to their hotel.
Tara Miller, an Australian resident of Abu Dhabi, said she saw police cars and emergency services vehicles at the top level of the mall’s car park when she arrived with her husband.
“When walking into the mall we could see that the escalators were not working,” she said.
Shopkeepers prevented people from coming in although there were lighting in parts of the lower level and further inside the mall, she said.
“We turned back to find the exit where our car was parked and they had blocked it by lowering thick blinds,” she said.
“It felt like we were being blocked in,” she said. “So my husband and I ran down the escalators and out into the car park. I don’t scare easily but that is an experience I never wish to have again,” she said.
Abu Dhabi Police and Yas Mall were not available for comment.
nhanif@thenational.ae
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.”
