Missing out on milestone events in the lives of family and friends. Is this the real expat tax?

My brother and his wife welcomed a baby daughter into the world last week. As far as I can tell, my new niece has inherited my nose, which brings me untold joy given that my brother spent a significant part of our childhood making fun of my not insubstantial proboscis. Landmark moments in her life so far (ie the first time she yawned) are being dutifully chronicled and then passed from one member of the Denman clan to another via WhatsApp. This means that family members in Cyprus, Dubai, Kenya and further afield can all feel like they are part of the action unfolding in the quiet London suburb that my brother and his expanding family call home.

All the same, in spite of the pictures and messages and phone calls and videos, I can’t help but feel like I am missing out. I will meet my niece as soon as the family has settled into some kind of a routine, but it is at times like these that being an expat is most difficult – when the big events occur and you are not around to witness them first-hand. One of my colleagues knowingly refers to it as “the expat tax”, the price you pay for living away from home. It is a fair exchange for the opportunities that being in the UAE has afforded me, but I still wish I could have seen that yawn in real time.

I started paying the expat tax early on. A couple of weeks after I moved to Dubai, one of my closest friends got married. I wasn’t there. There have been plenty of other events along the way – weddings, birthdays and other milestone celebrations – that I couldn’t make it back for. I wasn’t there when our family dog passed away or when my mother had emergency knee-replacement surgery. Of course, there are countless events that I did attend, but it is human nature to focus on the ones you’ve missed.

Things have become even harder since children were introduced into the mix. Old friendships and close family relationships can survive long bouts of separation – if they are strong enough, ties can easily be renewed, even if you see someone only a couple of times a year. But forging relationships with little ones – my nephew for example, who is now three and a half, or my god-daughter, who is five – requires a more sustained, consistent approach. Every time I see my nephew, it feels like we are starting from scratch; trust needs to be renewed and fresh memories need to be formed. He understands on some level that I am important, but I’m a stranger all the same. Foundations need to be reinforced over and over again.

I have been known to overcompensate. For one of my god-daughter's birthdays, I realised that I had left it too late to post a present from Dubai to London and so, in a mild state of panic, I ordered an oversized reproduction of the Frozen ice castle from Harrods, purely because it offered next-day delivery. "Dude, who buys a three-year-old a present from Harrods?!" was the message I received from the birthday girl's mother the following day. "I fear you may have been living in Dubai too long!"

Maybe that’s the real expat tax – overpriced Disney castles to try to make up for one’s absence.

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Read more of Selina's thoughts:

Beach holidays: a major bore or the ultimate escape? I'm about to find out

The eternal quest for the perfect work-life balance

Paying tribute to the extraordinary life of my dad, the ultimate expat

Why eating meat makes me feel like a hypocrite

Phone etiquette? I need some guidelines please

After a decade, Dubai feels like it has come of age

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Formula Middle East Calendar (Formula Regional and Formula 4)

Round 1: January 17-19, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi

Round 2: January 22-23, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi

Round 3: February 7-9, Dubai Autodrome – Dubai

Round 4: February 14-16, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi

Round 5: February 25-27, Jeddah Corniche Circuit – Saudi Arabia

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

The specs

AT4 Ultimate, as tested

Engine: 6.2-litre V8

Power: 420hp

Torque: 623Nm

Transmission: 10-speed automatic

Price: From Dh330,800 (Elevation: Dh236,400; AT4: Dh286,800; Denali: Dh345,800)

On sale: Now

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.”

UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets

UAE currency

It's Monty Python's Crashing Rocket Circus

To the theme tune of the famous zany British comedy TV show, SpaceX has shown exactly what can go wrong when you try to land a rocket.

The two minute video posted on YouTube is a compilation of crashes and explosion as the company, created by billionaire Elon Musk, refined the technique of reusable space flight.

SpaceX is able to land its rockets on land once they have completed the first stage of their mission, and is able to resuse them multiple times - a first for space flight.

But as the video, How Not to Land an Orbital Rocket Booster, demonstrates, it was a case if you fail, try and try again.