CHRISTCHURCH, NEW ZEALAND // A powerful 5.1-magnitude aftershock struck New Zealand's earthquake-stricken city of Christchurch today, as officials doubled their estimate for repairing the damage from nearly 300 aftershocks in five days.
The latest quake, just 6.4 kilometres below the earth's surface and centered 10kms southeast of the city, was felt by residents as the strongest aftershock in Christchurch since Saturday's 7.1 magnitude earthquake wrecked hundreds of buildings. Nobody was reported injured by the latest aftershock.
"My guts are just churning up here. When will this thing end? It is like living in a maelstrom," the Christchurch mayor Bob Parker said as workers streamed from the city's emergency headquarters.
"We have got staff in tears ... power is out and a lot of people are very, very churned up by that," he told the NewstalkZB radio station.
"We were starting to think maybe, just maybe, we are over the worst of this, and now we have had this shocking event," Mr Parker said. "This is a hammer blow to the spirit of a lot of people."
After his second, closer look at the quake carnage today, the New Zealand prime minister John Key said he thought that rebuilding the city would cost more than the initial estimates of NZ$2 billion (Dh5.3bn), with at least 500 buildings already condemned and about 100,000 of the area's 160,000 house damaged.
Treasury Secretary John Whitehead said later the full bill for quake damage could reach NZ$4bn, with the nation's Earthquake Commission likely to pay half of that.
Civil defence director John Hamilton said the safety status of some buildings would be reassessed after today's quake, though Christchurch had suffered no "significant" new damage.
The city's main road tunnel, closed while cracks were inspected following the aftershock, was reopened after it was deemed structurally sound, he said.
GNS Science reported that more than 280 aftershocks of magnitude 3.0 or greater have struck the region in the five days since the destructive 7.1 earthquake early on Saturday.
Seismologist Brian Ferris said people would have felt about 150 of those quakes.
Earthquake experts warned that another strong aftershock, up to magnitude-6.1, could hammer the region in coming days.
"With an earthquake of magnitude-7.1, like this one, the rule of thumb is you could get aftershocks as large as one unit lower - so magnitude-6.1," seismologist John Townend of Victoria University in the capital, Wellington, said today.
Saturday's powerful earthquake smashed buildings and homes, wrecked roads and disrupted the central city, though nobody was killed and only two people were seriously injured - which authorities attributed to good building codes and the quake's early morning timing.
The city centre remained cordoned off by troops today, as authorities extended a state of civil emergency for another seven days. Only building owners and workers are allowed into the central city to begin clearing up the mess - with much of the centre taking on the mantle of a ghost town.
Today, the prime minister traveled north of the city to inspect houses in the town of Kaiapoi that had been torn from their foundations by the quake.
"It shows you how well the building code works in New Zealand as they had been picked up, ripped apart and yet the structure has survived enough that people could escape," Mr Key said after looking through one wrecked house.
"There are (citizens) who are really struggling under the weight of these earthquakes, both emotionally and in terms of their prized possessions," particularly homes, he told reporters.
Mr Key has called off a planned nine-day trip to Britain and France, citing what he called the quake zone's continuing "instability."
* AP
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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.”