ABU DHABI //The Hussein home is not a typical Arab abode. The three-bedroom flat on the eighth floor houses two parents, four siblings - and five cats.
Guests sometimes decline invitations to the apartment, just off the Corniche, when they hear about the flurry of felines.
Many members of the Arab community fear - or even hate - the animals. The aversion stems from a variety of beliefs about cats including that they are evil or dirty or that they can cause infertility.
Hassan Hussein, 21, just shakes his head when he talks about the problems his family's love for the creatures can cause.
"People are just ignorant," he said. "In Islam, cats are respected, as the Prophet Mohammed had a cat and a cat saved him from a snake bite."
Hassan is the second-youngest in his family - he has a 17-year-old brother, Hussein, and two sisters, Aida, 29, and Merwat, 23.
After a visitor steps out of the lift, his family's apartment is easy to spot, marked by an assortment of colourful cat carriers and a pile of empty litter boxes.
"People say we love cats because we are Egyptians and in the time of the Pharaohs we used to worship them," said Hassan, with a laugh.
The cat goddesses, known as the lion-headed Sekhmet and the domestic cat-headed Bastet, were daughters of the sun god Ra and worshipped by ancient Egyptians.
The five pet cats may be from the Hussein's native country of Egypt, but that is where the similarities end. Two of them were abandoned or homeless until the family rescued them.
Aida found "the grandmother" of the group, a pure white Persian called Tiga, on the streets of Alexandria, wet from the rain and deaf.
She was brought over to the UAE when Aida was visiting Abu Dhabi from her college in Egypt.
"She is quiet and sweet and communicates to us through her eyes," said Hassan.
A quick tap on the bed was all it took for the four-year-old to jump up for a snuggle. Tiga's son Roco, a one-year-old red-orange Persian, copied his mother, climbing on to Hassan and settling on his left shoulder. He was quickly followed by Fastooka, a two-year-old gray Persian. She was found, also in Egypt, by Hassan's sister, and has since become the "most motherly" of the group.
"She takes care of everyone," said Hassan. Two-month-old Nacho has long black fur peppered with gold. The offspring of Fastooka and Roco is already fiercely loyal. Once, when Hassan was locked out, the kitten stood by for an hour - gently scratching on the other side of the door.
"I recognised Nacho's meow," he said. "She kept me company the whole time and then welcomed me home with the rest of the cats when the door was finally unlocked."
Nacho and her sister, the brown-gray Tushi, are the most "mischievous" of the family. Chasing a piece of paper, they ran and slid across the floor before slamming into their sleeping mother.
"They keep the house alive, and keep us all busy," said Hassan.
Mealtime for the pets means four bowls of wet cat food and a fifth bowl of milk for Nacho, who still "prefers" it, and lots of catnip. The rest of the time is a sort of organised chaos.
None of them likes the cats when Hassan and Hussein divide their attention from them by studying, and sit on the brothers' books and papers in an attempt at distraction.
The Hussein family's love for cats and animals began long before Hassan was born. His father has rescued and taken care of cats and dogs since his childhood.
"Father always defends the cats," said Hassan. "If he sees one running, he comes and scolds us, asking what did we do."
Like father like son. When Hassan posts photographs on Facebook, the cats are featured alongside his siblings and parents. Hassan cares for two more cats, Timmy and Jack, who live on the campus of Abu Dhabi University, where he studies marketing.
When he moves out of the family home, Hassan plans to move into a big villa and fill it with animals.
"I don't know how people can live without a pet," he said. "Our cats make such a huge difference in our lives."
rghazal@thenational.ae
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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.”
