Sport

Staal goals blow Islanders away

The Carolina Hurricanes, playing like a "well-oiled machine", thrashed the New York Islanders 9-0 to win their ninth consecutive game.

RALEIGH // The Carolina Hurricanes, playing like a "well-oiled machine", thrashed the New York Islanders 9-0 to win their ninth consecutive game. Eric Staal scored a hat-trick while Erik Cole and Anton Babchuk each had four assists as the Hurricanes (45-28-7) won a team-record 12th successive game at home. "We are playing like a well-oiled machine," Staal said after his fourth hat-trick of the season. He now has 39 goals and 35 assists this season. "When you're confident and doing the right things you are going to get good results and nights like tonight."

The victory boosted the fifth-placed Carolina to 13-1-2 in their last 16 games and helped them keep pace with Philadelphia (43-25-11) in the Eastern Conference. Both teams have 97 points. Philadelphia clinched a play-off spot with a 2-1 home win over the Florida Panthers. Carolina have already secured a post-season berth for the first time since winning the Stanley Cup in 2006. Cam Ward, the Hurricanes netminder, earned his sixth shut-out and 39th win of the season by stopping 12 shots while the Islanders suffered their worst defeat.

Carolina peppered the Islanders' goaltenders Yann Danis and Joey MacDonald with a whopping 57 shots. Danis lasted only a period, giving up three goals on 10 shots, while MacDonald had 41 saves but gave up six goals. "I don't ever remember playing in a game like that," said the Hurricanes' Tuomo Ruutu, who scored two of Carolina's three power-play goals in the third period. The Islanders were charged with eight penalties in the final period, including a 10-minute misconduct penalty against Joel Rechlicz, who was also given a five-minute major for fighting and two minutes for being an instigator in a fight with Carolina's Tim Conboy. Conboy also was penalised five minutes for fighting.

"I put our better players on the ice on most power plays in the third period because I didn't like the penalties they were taking," the Carolina coach Paul Maurice said. "Had they just been hooking or interference I wouldn't have run it up. But as coaches we've got to have some recourse to handle a game like that." Dennis Seidenberg delivered the opener 2:54 into the game and Staal and Scott Walker made it 3-0 before the end of the period. Canes captain Rod Brind'Amour has his 16th goal of the season sandwiched between Staal's second-period goals as the hosts took a 6-0 lead.

Frank Kaberle added to Ruutu's goals in the third period. "No matter who we play against we've got to get ready for the play-off," the Hurricanes' Babchuk said, "and we need the points for home ice advantage." BJ Crombeen scored twice as the St Louis Blues outscored the Phoenix Coyotes 5-1 to move closer to their first play-off berth since 2004. The victory enabled St Louis (39-31-10) to stay two points ahead of Nashville (39-33-8) in the chase for the final postseason spot in the Western Conference.

* Reuters

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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.

2025 Fifa Club World Cup groups

Group A: Palmeiras, Porto, Al Ahly, Inter Miami.

Group B: Paris Saint-Germain, Atletico Madrid, Botafogo, Seattle.

Group C: Bayern Munich, Auckland City, Boca Juniors, Benfica.

Group D: Flamengo, ES Tunis, Chelsea, (Leon banned).

Group E: River Plate, Urawa, Monterrey, Inter Milan.

Group F: Fluminense, Borussia Dortmund, Ulsan, Mamelodi Sundowns.

Group G: Manchester City, Wydad, Al Ain, Juventus.

Group H: Real Madrid, Al Hilal, Pachuca, Salzburg.

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.”