Syria agrees to Eid ceasefire, says peace envoy Brahimi

The Syrian government has agreed to a ceasefire during Eid Al Adha starting on Friday, the international peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi said in Cairo today.

Agencies

October 24, 2012

CAIRO // The Syrian government and some rebel leaders have agreed to a ceasefire during Eid Al Adha starting on Friday, the international peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi said in Cairo today.

Mr Brahimi said Damascus will issue a statement on accepting the truce for the holiday later "today or tomorrow".

Brahimi's announcement came as government forces intensified airstrikes on rebel-held area near the besieged city of Aleppo.

The fighting in Syria has killed more than 34,000 people since March last year, according to activists.

Mr Brahimi didn't elaborate on how such a truce would be monitored. The envoy met Mr Al Assad in Damascus on Sunday as part of his push for a ceasefire between rebels and government forces. He also held talks last week with opposition groups inside and outside Syria and earlier received "promises" but not a "commitment" from them to honour the ceasefire.

In Damascus, the foreign ministry spokesman Jihad Makdessi stressed today that the cessation of military operations during Eid Al Adha is still "being studied" by the General Command of the Army and the Syrian armed forces, and that "the final position on this matter will be issued on Thursday".

Abdelbaset Sieda, the head of the Syrian National Council, the main opposition group in exile, said he had little hope the truce would take hold. He said opposition fighters have told him they are willing to adhere to it, but will respond if attacked by regime forces.

"This regime, we don't trust it, because it is saying something and doing something else on the ground," Mr Sieda said from Stockholm, Sweden.

Mr Brahimi's proposal is far more modest than a six-point plan by his predecessor as Syrian envoy, Kofi Annan. A ceasefire was the centrepiece of Annan's proposal and was to lead to talks on a peaceful transition.

However, a truce never took hold and both sides violated their commitments, though Mr Annan said at the time the regime was the main aggressor because it refused to withdraw troops and heavy weapons from population centres.

In Syria, regime warplanes struck the village of Mar Shureen near a strategic rebel-held town in the country's north today, killing five members of an extended family, activists said.

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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