PARIS // France was plunged into mourning on Tuesday after the deaths of three sports stars, including an Olympic champion swimmer and one of the world’s best sailors, in a helicopter crash while filming a reality TV show in Argentina.
Champion sailor Florence Arthaud, Olympic gold medallist swimmer Camille Muffat and Olympic bronze medallist boxer Alexis Vastine were among 10 people killed when two helicopters filming the survival series Dropped smashed into each other in the rugged mountains of the northwestern La Rioja province.
“The whole of France is in mourning this morning,” said prime minister Manuel Valls.
Production company Adventure Line Productions (ALP) said it would “of course” immediately stop production of the television series and repatriate those involved.
Rioja provincial spokesman Horacio Alarcon said there were no survivors in the crash, which happened in good weather conditions on Monday.
Local media showed the wreckage of the two helicopters in flames on dry scrubland.
Alongside the three sports stars, five French TV crew members and two Argentine pilots died in the crash, a police source said.
Arthaud, 57, was considered one of the best sailors in the world, a woman who conquered what had been a strictly male-dominated sport. Her titles included the 1990 Route du Rhum, the most prestigious race to cross the Atlantic solo.
Muffat, 25, was one of the top swimmers in French history, winning three medals at the London Olympics in 2012, including gold in the 400-metres freestyle.
She shocked the sporting world in June 2014 by announcing her sudden retirement at the age of 24, exhausted by the long hours of training in the pool.
Vastine, 28, won a bronze medal at the Beijing games in 2008 in the light welterweight category.
President Francois Hollande led the tributes, saying the “brutal death of our compatriots is an immense sadness”.
Muffat’s former trainer Fabrice Pellerin told French radio station RTL: “What’s hard is to reconcile the image I have of Camille, who was unsinkable, with what happened.”
“To have in my head this strong girl, full of the joys of life, and then everything stops. I have known her since she was 13 so it’s like I’ve lost someone in my family.”
Dropped involved eight sports stars being dropped into inhospitable environments for an adventure and survival-themed show.
Fellow contestant, former France and Arsenal football star Sylvain Wiltord, said on Twitter: “I am sad for my friends. I am horrified. I’m speechless. I don’t want to say anything.”
Other stars taking part in the show – none of them hurt in the accident – were swimmer Alain Bernard, cyclist Jeannie Longo, snowboarder Anne-Flore Marxer and figure skater Philippe Candeloro.
In 2013, ALP was involved in another French reality television accident, when a contestant in survival show Koh-Lanta died of a heart attack during filming in Cambodia and a doctor on the programme then committed suicide.
The Rioja provincial government said a cast and crew of around 80 people, mostly French nationals, had descended on the area to film Dropped.
Shooting began in late February in Ushuaia, at the southern tip of South America in the glacial terrain of Patagonia.
It then moved to La Rioja, where scenic mountain landscapes are popular with tourists.
The crash happened around 5pm local time near the town of Villa Castelli, about 1,100 kilometres north of the capital Buenos Aires.
One of the helicopters involved was provided by the provincial government and the other by a police force in the neighbouring province of Santiago del Estero.
* Agence France-Presse
Paatal Lok season two
Directors: Avinash Arun, Prosit Roy
Stars: Jaideep Ahlawat, Ishwak Singh, Lc Sekhose, Merenla Imsong
Rating: 4.5/5
Results
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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.”
