Brazilian doctor Denis Cesar Barros Furtado, widely known as 'Dr. Bumbum', addresses the media at a police station, in Rio de Janeiro. EPA
Brazilian doctor Denis Cesar Barros Furtado, widely known as 'Dr. Bumbum', addresses the media at a police station, in Rio de Janeiro. EPA

Brazilian plastic surgeon charged with murdering patient



A Brazilian plastic surgeon has been charged with murder after one of his patients died after an operation carried out in his Rio de Janeiro apartment.

Dr Denis Furtado, 45, also known as Dr Bumbum for his work on buttocks, performed an operation on manager Lilian Calixto, 46, with help from his mother and girlfriend.

But he was not authorised to carry out the practice in the state of Rio de Janeiro and he is charged with using too much of a chemical that led to Ms Calixto's death.

She fell ill after the operation and he took her to a nearby hospital, where she died after suffering from an abnormally high heart rate.

Dr Furtado became a celebrity plastic surgeon after posting pictures of his surgical work on photo-sharing app Instagram, amassing a following of 650,000.

"I have never had a complication [with a patient]," he said at a police station press conference, pleading his innocence. He said he had performed thousands of operations without issue.

Dr Furtado is accused of using 300ml of an acrylic plastic which should only be used in small doses.

The public prosecutor's office in Rio de Janeiro said Dr Furtado had lured in women "with the false promise of quick and immediate beauty".

In a July Facebook post, he wrote that the procedure was "minimally invasive" and offered "immediate and definitive results, using local anaesthesia and therefore painless". He said there was not "much need of rest after the procedure".

He went missing after Ms Calixto's death but police arrested him June following a four-day manhunt.

The Brazilian Society of Plastic Surgery has also condemned Dr Furtado for his actions and said Brazil has a wider cosmetic surgery problem.

His mother faces charges after helping him to practice in the state without a licence and after her own medical licence had been revoked.

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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.”

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