Friends and family of an Abu Dhabi teacher have been left stunned by his death in a train accident in Germany.
Darren Duggan, 38, had been on an Eid break in Munich to attend the Oktoberfest beer festival when he was hit by an S-Bahn train while returning to his campground in the early hours of Monday morning.
He was on holiday with his wife, Liz, who had gone back to the camp ground earlier.
The couple, originally from Queensland in Australia, were married in April 2008.
They moved last April to Abu Dhabi, where Mr Duggan worked for Nord Anglia Education, a teacher training organisation contracted to the Abu Dhabi Education Council.
He also has a teenage daughter in Australia.
Derek Griffin, a fellow teacher based in Abu Dhabi, said Mr Duggan's friends in the capital had been stunned by his death.
"He was one of those larger-than-life characters and he was hugely popular among his friends in Abu Dhabi," he said.
"He was also a committed educator, working in teacher upgrading in the capital.
"He'll be greatly missed, and we extend our heartfelt condolences to his wife, Liz, and his daughter."
Mr and Mrs Duggan had been in Germany on an organised tour with The Fanatics, an Australian company that specialises in arranging for supporters to attend sporting events and festivals.
Oktoberfest began in 1810 as a one-off festival to celebrate the marriage of Crown Prince Ludwig, but has grown into the biggest public festival in the world, spanning 16 days from mid-September to early October. Last year, it was attended by nearly six million people.
Mr Duggan had attended the festival before, as part of a rugby tournament in southern Germany in 2001.
A statement from Munich police, quoted by the news agency AFP, said Mr Duggan is thought to have died instantly in the accident, near the Munich suburb of Laim. He and a 25-year-old New Zealand man, who was not identified by the police, were on their way home to the campground.
"The two men apparently did not see the approaching S-Bahn before one of them was hit by the engine and fatally injured," the police said.
Both men were described as inebriated. The New Zealander was unhurt but treated for shock, police added.
A spokeswoman for Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said consular assistance had been offered to Mrs Duggan, Australian media reported.
The Fanatics founder, Warren Livingstone, said in Sydney that the company's staff were "shattered" and were trying to help Mr Duggan's family, according to the reports. The company's manager, based in Munich, declined to comment.
News of Mr Duggan's death prompted an outpouring of support on the couple's profile pages on the social networking site Facebook.
Within 24 hours of the news, Mrs Duggan's profile had received more than 80 messages from friends and family in Australia, Europe and the Middle East - including fellow teachers and workmates in Abu Dhabi - expressing grief and shock and offering support.
The couple had created a website for their beachfront wedding in April last year in Australia, after which they predicted the website might "morph into 'The Joy of Marriage' blog or 'We're having triplets!' or something like as our journey continues". But no further updates were published before Monday's accident.
A former teaching colleague in Australia, the Sunshine Coast Grammar School principal, Nigel Fairbairn, told Brisbanetimes.com.au that Mr Duggan's friends in the region, just north of Brisbane, were shocked and saddened by the news.
He described Mr Duggan as "a very likeable and loyal person with a strong sense of justice [and] was a valued member of our school community who was well-known for his great sense of humour".
jhenzell@thenational.ae
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The years Ramadan fell in May
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
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Argentina 0 Croatia 3
Croatia: Rebic (53'), Modric (80'), Rakitic (90' 1)
'Worse than a prison sentence'
Marie Byrne, a counsellor who volunteers at the UAE government's mental health crisis helpline, said the ordeal the crew had been through would take time to overcome.
“It was worse than a prison sentence, where at least someone can deal with a set amount of time incarcerated," she said.
“They were living in perpetual mystery as to how their futures would pan out, and what that would be.
“Because of coronavirus, the world is very different now to the one they left, that will also have an impact.
“It will not fully register until they are on dry land. Some have not seen their young children grow up while others will have to rebuild relationships.
“It will be a challenge mentally, and to find other work to support their families as they have been out of circulation for so long. Hopefully they will get the care they need when they get home.”
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Group F: Fluminense, Borussia Dortmund, Ulsan, Mamelodi Sundowns.
Group G: Manchester City, Wydad, Al Ain, Juventus.
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The White Lotus: Season three
Creator: Mike White
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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.”
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Scoreline
Australia 2-1 Thailand
Australia: Juric 69', Leckie 86'
Thailand: Pokklaw 82'
