Forlan not surprised at success Manchester City’s Pellegrini and Aguero are enjoying in England

Diego Forlan sees both his former manager and strike partner face Barcelona on Tuesday in Manchester, a city he used to call home.

The Uruguayan played under Manuel Pellegrini and with Sergio Aguero. He is not surprised at how well both are doing for the English side.

“Pellegrini understood his players,” Forlan says of the manager who relaunched his career at Villarreal after a frustrating time at Manchester United. “‘Be calm tomorrow,’” he said to me before a big match. ‘Don’t be anxious.’ Simple, soothing and yet effective words, like hearing a doctor say that you will be OK. Because I trusted him, I believed him.

“One day, I stayed behind after training to practise shooting. I saw Pellegrini watching and, after a while, went to speak to him.

“‘Why do they call you the engineer?’ I asked. He told me about his life as an engineer in his home city of Santiago, combining his studies with being a footballer and working on buildings.

“I asked him about earthquakes as Santiago has suffered large ones. He explained that working on buildings in an earthquake area was another challenge in a tough job, but that he had worked on two buildings which had survived earthquakes. He was proud of that.

“There was no chance of him leaving anything he did to chance, either as an engineer or a coach.”

Forlan moved to Atletico Madrid, where he added another European Golden Boot to the one he had won at Villarreal. In Madrid, he formed a formidable partnership with Sergio Aguero.

“Kun [Aguero] is strong, quick and has a natural instinct for scoring goals. Nice guy too. We linked up really well and were one of the best attacks in Europe,” Forlan says. “We were part of a group of players who changed the mentality at Atletico.

“We didn’t believe all the rubbish about the club being cursed and always failing. We didn’t fail. Everyone said Atleti had the players to be a good team, but not a great one.”

“Kun’s doing really well in England and so is Pellegrini,” Forlan added. “That doesn’t surprise me. Though had you told me 10 years ago that one of the best managers in the world and one of the best coaches in the world would be doing well at Manchester City, that would have surprised me.”

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Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.

The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.

Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.

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In the village of Mevagissey in southwest England the housing stock has doubled in the last century while the number of residents is half the historic high. The village's Neighbourhood Development Plan states that 26% of homes are holiday retreats. Prices are high, averaging around £300,000, £50,000 more than the Cornish average of £250,000. The local average wage is £15,458.

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Place of birth: Kalba

Family: Mother of eight children and has 10 grandchildren

Favourite traditional dish: Al Harees, a slow cooked porridge-like dish made from boiled cracked or coarsely ground wheat mixed with meat or chicken

Favourite book: My early life by Sheikh Dr Sultan bin Muhammad Al Qasimi, the Ruler of Sharjah

Favourite quote: By Sheikh Zayed, the UAE's Founding Father, “Those who have no past will have no present or future.”

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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.”