Blaise has a beer in his hand, he's in front of a TV screen showing the World Cup, and the smile on his face suggests life doesn't get much better than this.
But Canal Plus may disagree – it owns the broadcasting rights in Gabon to the match being illegally shown in the bar in Libreville, the capital.
"I've got a Canal Plus box, but I got hooked up to BeIN Sports for the World Cup – it costs less!" says Blaise.
BeIN has no rights to broadcast World Cup matches in the western central African state.
But that is overlooked by a host of private firms, unconnected to the Qatar-based pay TV group, which will happily link up punters to the BeIN feed in exchange for a sum.
Blaise shrugs off any legal or moral qualms about broadcasting piracy, a common phenomenon across Africa. "It's their problem, not mine."
AFP contacted BeIN, but it did not respond.
BeIN's direct competitor, Canal Plus, says piracy costs it between 15 and 20 per cent of its turnover, according to Mamadou Mbengue, the head of the channel in Gabon.
"Canal Plus has a virtual monopoly on sports broadcasting rights in all of French-speaking sub-Saharan Africa, but some companies are committing industrial piracy. They get a free ride, while we paid for the rights," he said.
"It worries us because it impacts our business. There is a risk of the same thing happening which occurred in the Maghreb – in the long term, we have to pack our bags."
The station pulled out of the Maghreb region years ago, with BeIN now the only authorised World Cup broadcaster in Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and Egypt.
'Do something'
Bizarrely, Canal Plus is back in Algeria – but illegally so. Viewers are able to quite easily buy set-top boxes, which break through the channel's encryption.
"It's piracy," says a hawker at a large market in Algiers. He said the devices are sold everywhere legally for between 100 and 150 euros (Dh428 and Dh641).
The practice is widespread across the region, particularly in the Moroccan city of Casablanca known as "the Mecca of pirated material".
In four of the five African countries that made it through to the tournament – Senegal, Nigeria, Morocco and Tunisia – public television channels have bought the rights to broadcast the national team's matches.
In Senegal, the National Council of Audiovisual Regulation threatened penalties against any illegal transmission of games, coming after a row between two broadcasters over the rights that ended with both being able to show matches.
"The costs of broadcasting rights for sports events are often too high for our organisations, this partly explains the piracy," said Gregoire Ndjaka, director of the African Broadcasting Union.
He has received between 10 and 15 calls a day since the start of the World Cup: "They come from Ghana, Cameroon, Ivory Coast... they all ask me to do something so that local actors respect the arrangements and stop hacking."
Beatrice Damiba, president of the Pan-African NGO Convergence, which fights against piracy, said it works to inform people that it's theft.
"It's not only football that is hacked, there us also music, cinema, and that concerns all of Africa," she said.
At a glance
Global events: Much of the UK’s economic woes were blamed on “increased global uncertainty”, which can be interpreted as the economic impact of the Ukraine war and the uncertainty over Donald Trump’s tariffs.
Growth forecasts: Cut for 2025 from 2 per cent to 1 per cent. The OBR watchdog also estimated inflation will average 3.2 per cent this year
Welfare: Universal credit health element cut by 50 per cent and frozen for new claimants, building on cuts to the disability and incapacity bill set out earlier this month
Spending cuts: Overall day-to day-spending across government cut by £6.1bn in 2029-30
Tax evasion: Steps to crack down on tax evasion to raise “£6.5bn per year” for the public purse
Defence: New high-tech weaponry, upgrading HM Naval Base in Portsmouth
Housing: Housebuilding to reach its highest in 40 years, with planning reforms helping generate an extra £3.4bn for public finances
How to vote
Canadians living in the UAE can register to vote online and be added to the International Register of Electors.
They'll then be sent a special ballot voting kit by mail either to their address, the Consulate General of Canada to the UAE in Dubai or The Embassy of Canada in Abu Dhabi
Registered voters mark the ballot with their choice and must send it back by 6pm Eastern time on October 21 (2am next Friday)
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.”
