Hurrah for Wills and Kate! At the end of next week, they will be finally tying the knot at a much-hyped wedding extravaganza.
I enjoy watching a good wedding, and having organised my own a few years ago, I know what a challenge it can be to pull off the perfect one when nothing less than perfect will do. The entire shindig is usually the preserve of the bride, who has probably dreamt of this day since she was a tiny tot. Do men really care?
Don't Tell the Bride is a UK television programme that plays with the notion that the wedding is all about the bride and that men know nothing - and care even less. To cover the expenses of the entire wedding, the programme gives the substantial sum of £12,000 (Dh72,000) to the groom.
As it happens, this is about the same amount the Emirati Marriage Fund gives to Emirati men, a sweetener to encourage Emirati men to marry Emirati women. Can he be persuaded not to "marry out" and instead rescue an Emirati damsel? Will the lady get her man?
In Don't Tell the Bride, the catch is that the groom must not confer with the bride on any aspect of the wedding. Can he pull off her dream wedding, or will she curse him forever for ruining her special day? Will the lady get her day?
I admit to finding this programme disturbingly compelling. The bride's desperation for perfection is played off against the groom's cluelessness. She wants a romantic fairy-tale castle; he organises a poolside barbecue. She wants a slimming frock; he plumps for a flouncy, meringue-like skirt. And yet, it all seems to work out well in the end. The bride smiles, the groom's relieved - and they all live happily ever after.
It seems men are not so useless wedding-wise after all.
Is this how Kate feels as her big day draws near? Is she the mastermind enjoying having a team of professionals at her behest? Or is she feeling excluded from the process that turns her wedding into a public spectacle?
Frankly, and I say this on behalf of all couples who are getting married this year, William and Kate have set the bar too high for the weddings of mere mortals.
How on earth can anyone compete with this royal spectacular? Surely every wannabe princess will bemoan her own very ordinary, "commoner" wedding after this. Copycat weddings will be all the rage, and the style of Kate's frock will become staple wedding attire, as was Diana's.
Westminster Abbey is the venue for the ceremony, one of the most exclusive locations in the world. And just to rub it in, the Abbey has just released an iPad application to allow you to see the building in its full 3D glory. The queen's own kitchen staff will take care of the catering. And George Michael has recorded a special cover of Stevie Wonder's You and I as a wedding present for the couple.
It's estimated that two billion people worldwide will watch Kate get married on Friday. A wedding is a day many women see as their fairy-tale occasion. At this wedding, one bride will - literally - become a princess. Not for their royal status, but for their lives together as a married couple, I wish them every happiness and success.
Shelina Zahra Janmohamed is the author of Love in a Headscarf and writes a blog at www.spirit21.co.uk
The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable
Amitav Ghosh, University of Chicago Press
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
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.”
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Qyubic
Started: October 2023
Founder: Namrata Raina
Based: Dubai
Sector: E-commerce
Current number of staff: 10
Investment stage: Pre-seed
Initial investment: Undisclosed