ISTANBUL // Born into Turkey's small Greek minority in Istanbul, Dimitris Panayotu moved to Athens with his parents as a small child.
But after losing his job in the crisis that has devastated the Greek economy, he returned to the city of his birth a year ago and now works a few hundred metres from the hospital where he was born.
"I see no future in Greece," said Mr Panayotu, 41, on a recent morning, as he was sitting in a trophy-filled room of the Beyoglu Sports Club, founded by Istanbul's Greek community in the eponymous district in Istanbul in 1884.
Mr Panayotu has found a job as the club's administrator and guide for Greek tourists.
He said club officials offered him the post during a visit to Istanbul a few years ago and, after he lost his work in the logistics sector in Athens, he took up a position there.
"They were looking for someone who speaks Greek," he said. "I took two suitcases and came."
Mr Panayotu is one of an increasing number of Greeks who are moving to Turkey to escape the economic crisis at home.
That crisis has sent the unemployment rate to 27 per cent, while the economy crashed, shrinking by 6.4 per cent last year. As the Greek economy went into nosedive, Turkey enjoyed an unprecedented period of growth, with 8.8 per cent in 2011 and 2.2 per cent last year.
There are no official figures about the size of the migration, but the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, the seat of Patriarch Bartholomew I, the leader of the Greek Orthodox Church, says it has in the last two years received several hundred queries by Greek citizens considering such a move.
Observers say the trend is based on economic reasons, geographical proximity and a special Turkish-Greek affinity that is alive despite decades of political tensions between the two countries
Rivalry and hostility between Turkey and Greece dating back decades has been pushed aside in recent years by a rapprochement that has led to a steep rise in trade and closer political ties.
Bilateral trade, dominated by Turkish exports, has almost doubled since 2009, to just under US$5 billion (Dh18.4bn) last year.
About 670,000 tourists from Greece visit Turkey every year and Istanbul is their main destination. The city was home to tens of thousands of Greeks until the 1950s, but hostility against Greeks and other minorities in Turkey drove many of them out. Today, only about 3,000 Greeks are left.
Some of the tourists make their way to Mr Panayotu at the Beyoglu Spor Kulubu. For them, the club building is a landmark, because its members founded two of the leading football clubs in Greece, Athletic Union of Constantinople (AEK) in Athens, and the Pan-Thessanolician Athletic Club of Constantinopolitans (PAOK) in the north-eastern Greek city of Thessaloniki.
"It's the mother of those two clubs," Mr Panayotu said.
His family left Istanbul when he was just two months old, "because everyone was going", he said. "I was raised in Athens. My parents never wanted me to learn Turkish, because we were Greek." Even working in Istanbul today, he struggles with the language. "Fate has given us something else" from what his parents expected, he said.
But Mr Panayotu said he had adapted to his new life. His wife has joined him in Istanbul with their daughter, 3.
"It was best to come here, because I have a job," he said.
Dimitrios Triantaphyllou, a political scientist from Greece and the director of the Center for International and European Studies at Istanbul's Kadir Has University, said while most of the people leaving Greece were moving to the US or western countries, Turkey had attracted a number of migrants as well.
"I have had a steady flow of requests [from Greeks] to work here for more than a year," he said.
Mr Triantaphyllou has been working in Istanbul since September 2010. He said his own move to Turkey was not linked to the crisis in Greece, but to the chance to teach at a Turkish university and run a research centre, which was "an opportunity that was difficult to resist".
"The political rapprochement is another factor. There is also the perception that the Turkish economy is booming. I was teaching in Rhodes before I came here, and lots of my former students are here now. This is an investment for their families."
Alexandros Kampouris, a volunteer at IHO, a daily newspaper for the Greek Orthodox community in Istanbul, said people from Greece were hoping for a job in Istanbul because they had heard about Turkey's economic boom, but not everyone was able to find work. "They are always coming and going," he said.
Popular Turkish TV series on Greek TV had also heightened the interest of would-be immigrants from Greece, said Niki Christopoulou, who produces a Greek radio programme at the IHO office, upstairs from Mr Panayotu's sports club.
She said a Turkish TV drama about the life of an Ottoman Sultan and other television series from Turkey had been very successful on Greek television.
"That is a good thing in general, but it is getting out of hand," Ms Christopoulou said with a smile. "Relatives from Greece are calling me to ask what will happen in the next episode" of one Turkish TV show or another, she said. "But I don't even own a television set."
tseibert@thenational.ae
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The flights
Emirates and Etihad fly direct from the UAE to Los Angeles, from Dh4,975 return, including taxes. The flight time is 16 hours. Alaska Airlines, United Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Aeromexico and Southwest all fly direct from Los Angeles to San Jose del Cabo from Dh1,243 return, including taxes. The flight time is two-and-a-half hours.
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Lindblad Expeditions National Geographic’s eight-day Whales Wilderness itinerary costs from US$6,190 (Dh22,736) per person, twin share, including meals, accommodation and excursions, with departures in March and April 2018.
Punchy appearance
Roars of support buoyed Mr Johnson in an extremely confident and combative appearance
6.30pm Meydan Classic Trial US$100,000 (Turf) 1,400m
Winner Bella Fever, Dane O’Neill (jockey), Mike de Kock (trainer).
7.05pm Handicap $135,000 (T) 1,400m
Winner Woven, Harry Bentley, David Simcock.
7.40pm UAE 2000 Guineas Group Three $250,000 (Dirt) 1,600m
Winner Fore Left, William Buick, Doug O’Neill.
8.15pm Dubai Sprint Listed Handicap $175,000 (T) 1,200m
Winner Rusumaat, Dane O’Neill, Musabah Al Muhairi.
8.50pm Al Maktoum Challenge Round-2 Group Two $450,000 (D) 1,900m
Winner Benbatl, Christophe Soumillon, Saeed bin Suroor.
9.25pm Handicap $135,000 (T) 1,800m
Winner Art Du Val, William Buick, Charlie Appleby.
10pm Handicap $135,000 (T) 1,400m
Winner Beyond Reason, William Buick, Charlie Appleby.
Skewed figures
In the village of Mevagissey in southwest England the housing stock has doubled in the last century while the number of residents is half the historic high. The village's Neighbourhood Development Plan states that 26% of homes are holiday retreats. Prices are high, averaging around £300,000, £50,000 more than the Cornish average of £250,000. The local average wage is £15,458.
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.”
