MILAN // Serie A clubs have agreed a deal that will allow bottom club Parma, beset by financial problems, to complete the season, the league said after a meeting on Friday.
Parma’s players have not been paid all season and their last two Serie A matches have been postponed -- one because they could not afford stewards or police at their Tardini stadium and the other after the players refused to play.
“The resolution was adopted confirming the willingness of the league to help Parma continue in the championship,” said Serie A president Maurizio Beretta in a statement.
He added that Italian football federation president Carlo Tavecchio would travel to Parma to put the proposed plan to the players.
Parma said on their website that Sunday’s match at home to Atalanta had been given the all clear by local safety officials and would go ahead.
Parma are due to face a bankruptcy hearing on March 19 and there was concern that if the club was wound up their remaining matches would be awarded as 3-0 walkovers to their opponents, discrediting the championship.
Beretta told reporters a fund of five million euros ($5.43 million) would be created from money received from fines paid by the clubs for crowd trouble and other breaches of Serie A regulations.
“If the club is passed over to a bankruptcy administrator on March 19, we shall intervene,” he said. “We’ll decide how exactly to intervene along with the administrator.”
Italian media said that 16 of the 20 Serie A clubs voted in favour of the bailout, three abstained and Cesena voted against.
Parma have only 10 points and the club have already changed hands twice this season, firstly to a Russian-Cypriot conglomerate and then to the Slovenia-based Mapi group.
Parma have never won Serie A but lifted two UEFA Cups in 1995 and 1999, the 1993 European Cup Winners’ Cup and three Italian Cups in a successful spell between 1992 and 2002.
They finished as Serie A runners-up in 1997 led by current Real Madrid coach Carlo Ancelotti and boasted players such as Gianfranco Zola, Faustino Asprilla and Hernan Crespo.
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Real estate tokenisation project
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.
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.”
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