A year after a tragedy that claimed the lives of a mother and four of her children, their husband and father has begun what will be a long road to recovery.
In the early hours of June 16 last year at their home in Al Ain, Abdulaziz Al Hudairi, an Egyptian farmer working for the municipality, woke to the screams of his wife Farah, 28.
She had been sleeping with their two sons and two daughters in the children's bedroom and were trapped by a fire that had broken out there.
Flames and thick smoke prevented Mr Al Hudairi, 33, from reaching his family.
He rushed outside, broke the bedroom window and tried to pry the anti-burglar bars open.
But he was not able to bend the bars enough to rescue even the smallest of his children.
When firefighters arrived from the nearest fire station, 25 kilometres away from the remote agricultural area of Remah, they found Mohammed, 10, Suad, 5, Aya, 3, and Omar, 2, dead in their room.
Their mother was found barely alive, but died later that day at Tawam Hospital due to smoke inhalation.
The cause of the fire is still unknown, although Civil Defence said at the time a short circuit was suspected.
Mr Al Hudairi was also admitted to Tawam after the accident but soon left for Egypt to bury his family in their homeland.
Before he left, he returned to the scene of the tragedy to collect a few items.
"I couldn't talk to him when he returned that day," recalled Shahr Nawaz, of Pakistan, a tractor driver who worked with Mr Al Hudairi at the Al Ain Municipality.
"While he was talking to someone else, I saw he couldn't stop crying. I'm sure it was very terrible for him, but it was very hard on me to see him like that after he lost everyone."
After burying his family back home, Mr Al Hudairi decided to travel to Mecca for Umrah to ease some of his pain, he recently told The National.
"I spent three difficult months in Egypt after Umra," said Mr Al Hudairi.
"I couldn't think of another at the time but my mum kept on insisting I get married again. She said, 'you have to move on, you have to live, you can't just stay like this."
Eventually Mr Al Hudairi acquiesced to his mother's wishes, married and returned with his wife to work for the Al Ain municipality last September.
He still farms for the municipality, but has been transferred to the Al Fagah area on the other side of Al Ain.
His old house in Remah is still vacant and untouched, with the charred borders of the windows making it seem as if time has stood still for this place since that tragic morning exactly one year ago.
"I couldn't return to that place again. I don't even want to think of it," Mr Al Hudairi said fighting back tears.
"All I am trying to do is put this incident behind me. No one and nothing will bring back my children. They are all with Allah now, may Allah bless them all.
"Insha'Allah I will have children again."
tsubaihi@thenational.ae
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.”
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.
