Beautifully made and unusually beautiful-looking from whichever angle you see it, its fluid lines are the work of the Paris-based designer Noé Duchaufour-Lawrance.
Beautifully made and unusually beautiful-looking from whichever angle you see it, its fluid lines are the work of the Paris-based designer Noé Duchaufour-Lawrance.

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Corvo chair

Object of desire Handcrafted from solid American walnut, this is a very lovely chair that questions received ideas about modernity.

Sandra Lane

May 15, 2010

This afternoon in New York, the inaugural Bernhardt Design/Stylus American Design Honors award ceremony will celebrate two young US-based designers. The venue will be Bernhardt Design's stand at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF), which is fitting, since the work of a host of (mostly young, some American) designers, talent-spotted and nurtured by Jerry Helling, Bernhardt's president and creative director, will form the backdrop.

Among the work will be the Corvo chair, fresh from its launch in Milan last month. Beautifully made and unusually beautiful-looking from whichever angle you see it, its fluid lines are the work of the Paris-based designer Noé Duchaufour-Lawrance. A work of timeless elegance, it looks utterly contemporary yet has subtle, indefinable echoes of the past - the Art Nouveau of Paris, perhaps? Or Britain's Arts and Crafts movement?

That may be at least in part because of the unusual way that Duchaufour-Lawrance developed the design - creating it first in carbon-fibre, then working backwards to reinterpret it in wood. And that was not as simple as it may sound. It took two skilled sample-makers almost a month to produce the first prototype. It soon became evident that the deceptively simple-looking design was too complex in its curves and angles to be manufactured using standard modern equipment, so Bernhardt elected to do it the old-fashioned way: by hand.

Fifteen different carving tools are used to hand-shape Corvo from solid American walnut, before it is sanded and sealed with a natural finish. The result is that every chair is slightly different, reflecting the personality and working style of the artisan who made it. It's a rather wonderful way of turning received ideas about modernity on their head. And it is a very lovely chair. www.bernhardtdesign.com

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.”

The White Lotus: Season three

Creator: Mike White

Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell

Rating: 4.5/5