#52 November

WEALTH ARABIA

NOVEMBER 2019

ISSUE 52 | NOVEMBER 2019

Removing the barriers to entry

Kim Fournais, Founder and CEO, Saxo Bank

Removing the barriers to entry

Dubai Technology and Media Free Zone Authority

A CPI Financial publication

Kim Fournais, Founder and CEO, Saxo Bank

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Contents ISSUE 52 | NOVEMBER 2019

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EDITOR'S LETTER

Greetings all,

W

elcome to the 52nd issue of WEALTH Arabia.

This month marks the fourth edition of the WEALTH Arabia Summit. It's quite possible that some of you are reading this as you're sitting in the conference hall, waiting for our day to begin. If so, thank you so much for being here with us on what is set to be a knowledge-packed day. For those that are still looking forward to the event, trust me, you're not going to want to miss it.

This issue we have a number of great insights. We were able to sit down with the founder and CEO of Saxo Bank, Kim Fournais, for an exclusive conversation recently that gave great insight into not only his institution, but where the investment world is headed from here. We hope you enjoy it.

Beyond that, I hope you turn towards the end of our publication to hear the story of one of the master's of China's contemporary art scene.

It's a fascinating story that we are choosing to tell on the anniversary of the Chinese art world's most pivotal moments of the last 50 years, which he was instrumental in.

Till next time,

NEWS & ANALYSIS The latest analysis from

the investment world

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OPINION Time to get active

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INVESTMENT Identifying a theme Continuing a track record of success Bahrain’s place in the fourth industrial revolution The continuing consequences of the Great Recession

18 22 26 28

COVER STORY Removing the barriers to entry

10

22

PRIVATE BANKING The human touch

32

26

William Mullally wealtharabia.net

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Contents P.O. Box 502491, Dubai Media City, UAE Tel: +971 4 391 4681 Fax: +971 4 390 9576

wealtharabia.net

CHAIRMAN

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SALEH AL AKRABI CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER

NIGEL RODRIGUES nigel.rodrigues@cpifinancial.net Tel: +971 4 391 3722 CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER

MOTORING The world's fastest SUV hits the sand

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SHERIF R. ELHUSSEINI sherif@cpifinancial.net Tel: +971 4 391 5419

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EDITOR - WEALTH ARABIA

ART China's abstract master

NAP ESTAMPADOR nap.estampador@cpifinancial.net Tel: +971 4 433 5320

NEWS EDITOR

BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER

KUDA MUZORIWA kuda.muzoriwa@cpifinancial.net Tel: +971 4 391 3729

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EDITORIAL

EVENTS The WEALTH Arabia Summit 2019

editorial@cpifinancial.net

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CHIEF DESIGNER

BUENAVENTURA JALUAG, JR. jun@cpifinancial.net Tel: +971 4 391 3719

44

HEAD OF SALES

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MARILYN BIDUYA marilyn.biduya@cpifinancial.net Tel: +971 4 391 4682 enquiries@cpifinancial.net ©2018 CPI Financial. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or used in any form of advertising without prior permission in writing from the editor.

Printed by Al Ghurair Printing & Publishing, Dubai, UAE

WEALTH ARABIA

NOVEMBER 2019

ISSUE 52 | NOVEMBER 2019

WEALTH WARNING!

Investing in 2030

Remember, if you wish to act on any of the information you read in WEALTH Arabia, consider taking independent advice first. WEALTH Arabia is written for a general audience and the information contained herein may not be appropriate for your personal circumstances.

Kim Fournais, Founder and CEO, Saxo Bank A CPI Financial publication

4

Investing in 2030 Kim Fournais, Founder and CEO, Saxo Bank

Dubai Technology and Media Free Zone Authority

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19 November 2019

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NEWS & ANALYSIS

T

Lewis Allsopp, CEO of Allsopp & Allsopp

he UAE Central Bank is in discussions to offer a flexible cap on real estate financing.

The UAE Central Bank’s plan to offer a flexible cap on real estate financing is welcomed within the sector. This news, in line with the cut in interest rates is highly encouraging for first-time buyers and the secondary market in general. Buyer sentiment is evident across Dubai with Allsopp & Allsopp’s report showing a rise in buyer registration and finance buyers in Q3. The additional lending is well structured and risk averse so, it’s not just pumping money into the market, but is opening the door for more people to be able to invest in real estate in the city, which is a positive move.”

G

old rallied on disappointing economic data out of the US in late October, but the easing of US-China trade tensions could slow the rush.

Carsten Menke, Head of Next Generation Research, Julius Baer

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Gold-market investors do not seem to be expecting a breakthrough in the trade talks, as holdings of physically backed gold products, our preferred gauge of safe-haven demand, remain close to record levels. However, inflows have slowed, suggesting that demand from safe-haven seekers has eased as of late, mirroring a cooling market mood among short-term traders in gold futures. While the more constructive trade talks between the US and China limit the short-term upside for gold, we still believe another escalation is more likely than a true de-escalation. Put differently, uncertainties related to trade tensions should remain high, supporting the demand for gold as a safe haven.

Furthermore, we still consider global growth to be on shaky ground, which should likewise support demand.”

OPINION

Time to get active

T

William Mullally

he prevailing wisdom for investment has always gone like this: If you know what you’re doing, invest actively.

If you don’t, invest passively. Of course, in recent years, that conversation has begun to change. Year after year, in major markets, passive investment seemed to win the day, and the conversation began to change away from active investment.

O f c o u r s e , t h a t ’s a n e a s y conversation to have when you’re in an unprecedented growth period for the global economy, with ten years of global growth after the Great Recession, which we dissect more later in this issue. When everything seems to be rising, of course active investors who may overthink or react humanly to certain events, try to find value in certain areas that a more broad passive approach may ignore, sometimes getting ahead of themselves, the urge might be for investors to shy away from active managers.

In 2019, however, passive seems to be losing out in key markets.

“Passive is very useful when you’re looking for a cheap solution when you have a strong view on markets, but that’s less and less the case for the big asset classes such as the US or emerging

markets. Surprisingly, passive has been very successful in the US, and we see a reversal this year. It’s been less successful in EM and we think it will continue to be the case because EM has a lot of substance to pick from. EM should be addressed, in general, using their active managers,” Cedric Le Berre, Fund Selector and Portfolio Manager for Union Bancaire Privée.

Two markets, however, still benefit from a passive approach.

“There are two caveats, Russia and Brazil. Those two countries are so energy dependent that if you want to make a call on Russia and your call is based on the price of oil or gas, you would rather go passive. With passive, you will have exposure to all the large energy companies and you will do much better than if you were trying to find a smart manager that goes into all the different areas of the Russian or Brazillian economy. For those markets we tend to be passive,” said Le Berre.

The solution for some asset classes, including fixed income, is a bit more in the middle. Exposure to both passive and active can be very beneficial, particular depending if you are looking to extend duration, which benefits from a passive investment approach.

wealtharabia.net

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Announcing the winners of the Banker Middle East Product Awards 2019 CPI Financial, the leading financial publisher in the Middle East, is proud to announce the winners of the 2019 edition of the Banker Middle East Product Awards.

CPI Financial, the publisher of Banker Middle East, has been conducting Awards programmes associated with its market-leading banking and finance publications for the last two decades.

Banker Middle East, its flagship title which now celebrating its 20th year, boasts more than 68,000 online members from across the Middle East who actively vote on www.bankerme.net.

The Banker Middle East Product Awards, now in their 12th year, celebrate the highest achievers and most successful financial products and services. While the Banker Middle East Industry Awards is decided by a complex methodology and panel of judges comprised of experts in the industry, the Banker Middle East Product Awards is decided by the readership of Banker Middle East both online and in print.

This year’s edition received a record number of votes from registered subscribers of the publication both online and offline, with 9,200 votes recorded across 51 categories.

Due to the overwhelming response, categories which received a large number of votes in non-competing markets resulted in individual winners for countries that reached a certain vote

threshold in that category. Otherwise, only one winner was chosen for the region.

In addition, because of the positive feedback and passionate engagement that this year’s Product Awards programme has generated for the industry at large, Banker Middle East will be publishing a Product Awards 2019 magazine, in order to highlight in greater detail the superlative products and services of the winning institutions.

“In the 20 years that we have published Banker Middle East, the industry’s products and services have experienced a period of remarkable growth and innovation, with exemplary institutions from across the region embracing the latest technologies and innovations to match and sometimes exceed the best banks and financial institutions worldwide. We’re proud to offer a platform with which the industry itself, as well as those in the broader financial landscape, can recognise those institutions across the Middle East whose product and service offerings stand out,” said Nigel Rodrigues, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of CPI Financial.

“The world is still changing rapidly, however, and the financial community must continue changing with it. The best institutions are customer-centric not only in their words, but in their actions. We look forward to tracing how the industry continues its forward momentum and adapts to the needs of tomorrow’s consumer,” Rodrigues continued.

A full list of Banker Middle East Product Awards 2019 winners is as follows: RETAIL BANKING • Best Retail Banking Services (Oman) Oman Arab Bank • Best Retail Banking Services (Lebanon) Blom Bank • Best Retail Banking Services (KSA) Al Rajhi Bank • Best Retail Banking Services (UAE) Emirates NBD • Best Car Loan Emirates NBD • Best Consumer Insurance Product AIG • Best Credit Card (KSA) The National Commercial Bank • Best Credit Card (UAE) Mashreq Bank • Best Islamic Credit Card The National Commercial Bank • Best Premium Credit Card (Kuwait) Ahli Bank of Kuwait • Best Premium Credit Card (KSA) The National Commercial Bank • Best Co-Branded Credit Card Blom Bank • Best Call Centre Commercial Bank of Dubai • Best Deposit Account Emirates NBD • Best Deposit Product Citibank • Best Current Account RAK Bank • Best Savings Account First Abu Dhabi Bank • Best Savings Product Ahli United Bank Kuwait • Best Bancassurance Product Proposition First Abu Dhabi Bank • Best Personal Loan Al Rajhi Bank

• Best Retail Customer Service Dubai Islamic Bank

CORPORATE & INVESTMENT BANKING

• Best Customer Loyalty Programme The National Commercial Bank

• Best Investment Banking Services GFH Financial Group

• Best Social Media Customer Service Dubai Islamic Bank

• Best Trade Finance Offering Trade Bank of Iraq

• Best Islamic Retail Banking Services (UAE) Dubai Islamic Bank

• Best Real Estate Advisory Mashreq CIBG

• Best Islamic Retail Banking Services (KSA) Al Rajhi Bank

• Best Corporate Advisory Service Standard Chartered

• Best Islamic Retail Banking Services (Egypt) ADIB Egypt

• Corporate Deal of the Year Dubai Islamic Bank

• Best Islamic Retail Banking Services (Bahrain) KFH Bahrain

• Best Cash Management Commercial Bank of Dubai • Best Treasury Management National Bank of Fujairah

• Best Islamic Corporate Banking Services Dubai Islamic Bank

• Best Market Maker and Liquidity Provider Al Ramz Capital

• Best Digital Banking Services (Kuwait) Warba Bank

• Best Customer Service – Corporate/ Investment Banking (UAE) National Bank of Fujairah

• Best Digital Banking Services (UAE) Mashreq Bank • Best Ladies Proposition National Bank of Fujairah

• Best Customer Service – Corporate/ Investment Banking (Bahrain) KFH Bahrain

• Best Financial Inclusion Programme Standard Chartered

• Best IT Solutions Provider SAP

• Best Home Finance Product Dubai Islamic Bank

• Best Investment Management Services GFH Financial Group

WEALTH MANAGEMENT & INVESTMENTS • Best Forex Trading Service Century Financial Consultancy • Best Islamic Fund First Abu Dhabi Bank • Best Wealth Management Solution Standard Chartered • Best Equity Fund First Abu Dhabi Bank SME FINANCE

• Best Premium Banking Services National Bank of Fujairah

• Best SME Exchange Service Mashreq Bank

• Best Priority Banking Service Mashreq Bank

• Best SME Internet Banking Service National Bank of Fujairah

• Best Mobile Banking Service (UAE) National Bank of Fujairah

• Best SME Loan National Bank of Fujairah

• Best Mobile Banking Service (Kuwait) Ahli United Bank Kuwait

• Best SME Trade Finance National Bank of Fujairah

• Best Business Insurance Product AIG

• Best Customer Service – SME Mashreq Bank

OVERALL • Best Banking Services (KSA) The National Commercial Bank • Best Banking Services (UAE) Dubai Islamic Bank • Best Banking Services (Lebanon) Blom Bank • Best Banking Services (Oman) Oman Arab Bank • Best Banking Services (Iraq) Trade Bank of Iraq • Best Banking Services (Bahrain) KFH Bahrain • Best Digital Transformation Services Commercial Bank of Dubai • Best CSR Services Ahli United Bank Kuwait

COVER INTERVIEW

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COVER INTERVIEW

Removing the barriers to entry Kim Fournais, CEO and Founder of Saxo Bank, on his plan to democratise investment

W

hat surprises you about the current investment landscape?

With all the QE, trade wars and Brexit, the days when the normal market dynamics were at play, and people felt that they knew something seem over.

Now they feel that they know a lot less because there are clearly factors from the outside, like central banks, Trump tweets, that impact the market in a non-normal way. The need for close support of clients is going up massively.

What’s important is that you can get help, assistance, and understanding at how you can better manage your risk, or where you may invest. It’s going to keep changing dramatically because people are close to paralysed in this world of ours, but that does not mean the world is stopping, or that there is no opportunity.

The need for you to feel supported in an unbiased way rather than a bank trying to push product for you is going to be increasingly important.

What was the original impetus that led you to create Saxo Bank?

It was the 15th of September ,1992— more than 27 years ago. Before that, I worked in various small banks and brokers in Denmark, and I got a pretty firm notion that it wasn’t very clientfocused. The pricing was crazy. The service level was really not there. It was very much a monopoly where the clients are a means to make money, but it was not ingrained to be a win-win collaboration.

I’m always trying to figure out how you can better service clients, because I profoundly believe that if you can create long-term win-win, not only in businesses but in any relationships whether that’s geopolitical, or even friends or family, that’s the long-term sustainable thing. Understanding each other, whether that’s needs and aspirations or whether that’s a moneymaking logic where we can find a way to suit both parties, I think is very important.

Banks closed at 4 pm, pricing was horrendous, and there was not really a service level. With very simple means, because we initially had investors for EUR 70,000, very little money.

At that time we hadn’t developed technology for obvious reasons, so it was really about getting a screen, two telephones, and a small office. Staff came in in the morning, wrote research, sent it out to potential prospects, and followed up on it. It was very basic and humble beginnings. Luckily we get off the ground, and pretty much grew organically since then.

When did you start to prioritise digital innovation?

In 1995 and 1996, we started thinking a lot about the internet. We said it was a very big opportunity. What we do in our industry is really data—there are no physical goods. Obviously, the internet is pretty good for data. We thought the pixels on the screen there would be the same for any major bank or broker. wealtharabia.net

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COVER INTERVIEW

If we could develop something, it would be much more transparent and easy for clients engaged in the market, as opposed to having a telephone that doesn’t really have price information.

At the same time, it wasn’t a scalable model, because you can’t have that many phones at the same time, taking orders, putting things on paper, someone puts it in the system, you send a letter to the client, and then a few days later someone would know if there was an error. Clearly, the internet, where you could see the pricing, put in your amount, trade and execute immediately was a much better client service but it also reduced cost and complexity. It was also a pretty powerful way to do things.

Since we launched the first platform in April 1998, we have been purely focused on improving that service with more relevant asset classes, better platforms, more competitive pricing, better tools to risk manage and engage with clients. When we launched the platform to become what we are today, a global facilitator trying to democratise investment and trading to ensure that on any device connected to the internet you can get a complete view of the global markets, you can trade on any macrocycle of the economy because we have all the asset classes on board and that’s very important.

We came very much from the selfdirected trader and investor space, where people pretty much know what they’re doing. A lot of our clients have been working in the financial industry—the number was close to 50 per cent some years ago, which entails that they are, if not professional, they are semi-professional. Most have no worked in an investment bank or a hedge fund, so increasingly over the past years we have tried to come up with much more investment products and solutions, because there are many people out there that ask what they should do with their money.

T h e re ’s d e f i n i t e l y ro o m fo r improvement in the self-directed investment space, because the industry has allowed people to roll out mutual funds with very high fixed fees. It’s not 12

unlikely to pay two per cent or more a year, and maybe the product is not top notch. If it’s both expensive and not really the best thing, that has huge impact. The Danish consumer council did a survey last year showing that if you can save one per cent a year and the mathematics are the same everywhere, then people can retire four years in advance with the same amount of money. That’s pretty powerful. My mother might not understand what a per cent might mean, but if it’s four years of our life she might start thinking more about it.

We were definitely fintech and regtech before people even started understanding that there were such names in the world.

Kim Fournais

The whole world is challenged right now. There’s a massive transformation right now. In the industry specifically, that means regulation, huge margin compression, technology including mobile devices, high expectations from clients, and all the compliance, risk and so-forth increases your cost base and decreases your revenue base, which isn’t very good for running a business. It also demands a different model. Having a digital model is a must, it’s not just something that’s nice to have.

Most global banks today have been buying other banks, and have a very complex operational and technical set up that is way too expensive to maintain and develop, and is not supporting clients in the best way possible. Those are huge challenges for the industry

that I think you can read about in the newspaper every day. What we think about is, can we be a part of that solution? Can we not only state the obvious problems but can we come up with something that can solve those problems, both our direct clients but also financial institutions? In the end, we all have end clients.

How would you summarise the bank’s philosophy today?

Our philosophy is very simple—we have to have the best client experience. That needs to be built on lean processes and utilise digitisation and technology to the furthest extent possible which includes cloud, open banking, microservices, AI, big data—all these fancy words, but things that allow us to engage with you in a personal way. We believe that’s the best way to take things to the next level.

It’s a big transformation. We were early adopters of this. We were definitely fintech and regtech before people even started understanding that there were such names in the world. In that sense, we have been mentally preparing and in factual terms preparing our technology, platforms, and engagement. But it is a very fast-changing environment where we have been super-focused on the selfdirected investors and traders and very much came from the trading side with derivative products for example—we still do that, and we still believe we are marketleading and we still want to be marketleading, but we also see the need for using and utilising that technology to cater for everyone with the wish to navigate their own financial future and destiny, which I think is important for all of us. Everyone goes to work to try to save some money, and eventually will have to have a pension or some money to live from. Ensuring that can be done from an efficient manner is very important for us as individuals but also for the whole society. There’s enough social unrest in this world.

The friction cost needs to come down, and the empowerment of people needs to come up. That goes into areas such as sustainability. There was a survey done in Sweden actually showing that many people are stopping eating

COVER INTERVIEW

Kim Fournais, CEO and Founder of Saxo Bank and the Dubai team

meat, stopping flying etc. because of the environmental consequences. That survey also showed that if you invest in renewable industries, whether that’s in better packaging or in sustainable energy, you can have 27 times more impact than if you live like a monk in a cave. That’s pretty powerful. I don’t think people thought about that, and I don’t think the financial industry made it very easy for people to say if you believe in this theme, here’s how you can educate yourself and invest in that theme. Hopefully you’ll make some good and sound investments.

Surveys also show if you invest in companies trying to solve today’s biggest issues, it’s typically a pretty good investment. Making it possible for people to react is very important. Many people feel disconnected from the world they live in and their lives, and I think empowerment is very important. Many people think that when they vote it will not make big changes, but if they can actually do something themselves, and invest to support your life, it’s another way to help the right things move forward in the right direction.

How have you improved your products and services?

First of all, how we addressed it was to say that we cannot do what I talk about now unless you have access to all the relevant products and services in the world, and that is both within an asset class•the big asset classes, such as foreign exchange, equities, fixed income and commodities, but when we go a layer down, it’s mutual funds, ETFs, futures, options, CFDs, different cash products— the whole shebang. Initially, we need access to that, and it’s actually quite difficult to build a true multi-asset real time infrastructure, which we’ve done in 28 languages. You have to start there.

Then, after that, what we looked at is to say that now it’s on the platform, but also my mother would get completely confused about which of these 5000 mutual funds to trade—she would have no clue. Initially our platform was built for people who knew what they were doing and demanded professional tools, but many people got very intimidated by that, and it was like a complete blackout because they didn’t know how to utilise that or what to trade and invest in.

Last year, just before Christmas, we launched our investor platform in Denmark, which is made in a completely different manner. It’s much more easy to understand. As Da Vinci said, simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. How can you produce something that is highly complex in a simple and intuitive manner? We tried to do that with the investor platform which we initially rolled out in Denmark, and it has been enormously successful. We will keep rolling it out, we have now rolled out in Singapore, and it’s going to go across the board.

The platform is something that anyone with minimal interest in this can understand. We have tried to build themes, education, but engage in a much easier manner. The beauty is that it’s built on the same open API that we build all the other platforms on, so it’s the same code, with fewer layers of sophistication so to speak, making it easy and engaging for clients.

On top of that, we rolled out in the UK, and will also be rolled out globally, what we call ‘timely, relevant and charming’ content. That means wealtharabia.net

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COVER INTERVIEW

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COVER INTERVIEW

Kim Fournais, CEO and Founder of Saxo Bank

that based on AI, big data and so forth, we will know our clients risk appetite, trading history, their interests, and more, so we can actually show them content on the platform that we know will be interesting to them. That could be an equity that you have that are now coming with earnings or an equity that you sold that is now falling ten per cent, showing you another way of doing things, a way to spread your risk, and much more. It’s something where you’re being supported on your mobile device. No one has time to sit and talk to people from their bank, at least not regularly. It’s about digital engagement, and how we can be relevant for our clients 24/7 on the platform.

That’s something that’s taking a long time. The precondition was to have all the products, so we’re building it from the platform upwards, but now we believe the whole service model of the industry will have to change.

First of all, you can’t have a human service which will be this sophisticated.

You need to build a service model that’s a little bit like Netflix, where they know what you see and what you stop so they can better present to you what you might like the next time.

It’s about using all the technology to create a service model that different but simple, and understanding clients to know when to be simple and when clients need additional sophistication.

It’s multidimensional, but in the end it’s about what you’re going to experience on your device.

If that’s timely and relevant to you, and you think it makes sense, then this is worth something. What we’re also seeing with new business models are claims that it’s free to trade. Of course, they need to make money elsewhere.

In the end, what’s important is that engagement, if you feel supported, if you get good products. People are used to paying for their coffee, and it’s the same thing in financial services, but it needs to be of value and relevant to you.

That’s the next massive change to be much more inclusive and get more people involved. I think our industry has been way too intimidating for way too many people for way too long. wealtharabia.net

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COVER INTERVIEW

Do you feel like the challenges and weaknesses in the banking landscape that led you to create Saxo 27 years ago still exist, or has the industry caught up?

We were pretty much the first ones to change the market into something that many people are now doing.

The internet has given us much more information, access to the market, and more transparency. Regulation has significantly changed as well. There are much more measures to ensure financial stability, consumer protection, and better offerings for clients.

I think there’s still ample room for improvement. As I’ve discussed, there’s still many things lacking. How many banks can you go to and say you want to trade a Japanese stock? These are things that will continually evolve. It’s not only about having the product, it’s about educating people and understanding why it’s important. People need to optimise their returns, but they should also invest in stuff that they actually support. If you don’t like cigarettes and weapons, maybe you should invest in something that makes more sense for you, because otherwise you’re driving an agenda that’s opposite to your beliefs, and you’re not putting your money where your mouth.

When we talk about democratisation, it’s also about giving the power to you to decide where you want to invest, and how you can do that in the best way for you, but also in the values and virtues that you believe are important in the world. There’s much more to do. We’ve been here for 27 years, many things have happened in the meantime, but we have not exhausted the potential of creating better services for our clients.

When did you first really identify the Middle East as an important part of Saxo’s strategy, and how do you view the investors in the region? What distinguishes them?

We’ve always understood that the Middle East was an important part of the world. Though we started 27 years ago, the first offices that we opened outside of Denmark were in 2007, and that was in Singapore and London.

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We have now been in Dubai for 10 years—we’re actually celebrating our anniversary. Overall, we’ve had a growth rate here of around 25 per cent a year.

That of course is interesting, and we believe that we’re just barely scratching the surface. We think the potential in the Middle East is quite massive.

Also, we’ve built good relationships with other banks and financial institutions because the problem in the industry is that there are too many legacy systems

that are very expensive to maintain and develop. Most of the resources are going to regulatory compliance and maintaining legacy systems, not developing better platforms for clients.

At the same time, what is the logic that everyone sits and develops their own machine? It makes no sense in a world of cloud-based solutions and open banking. It would be similar to us all producing our own energy with a diesel generator—why would you

COVER INTERVIEW

Kim Fournais, CEO and Founder of Saxo Bank

do that now? That transformation has happened, and the way that we can service the end-users. Now, there are much more partnerships, much more collaboration. We have built some great partnerships and we have some great ones in the pipeline in the Middle East, and we’re very committed to make them successful. The purpose of this is to make sure that as many people as possible have access to something we believe is quality.

How do you think investment will look in 2030?

Due to our humble beginnings, we had no choice from the beginning to be very nimble in how we set up the company.

Having relevant products and producing that is one part of the value chain. The next part is what we’re doing and what we specialise in—we want to be the best facilitator in global capital markets.

That’s about having a global technology stack, and a global set of business

processes. Taking the best from the best, a little like an Amazon of finance.

Amazon tries to source everything that clients might be interested in in a very cheap, intiuitive, and easy manner. You just get convenience.

The last part is just about distribution.

If you look at financial institutions today, 99.9 per cent of them are probably distributors. What they have is a brain and a client franchise, but they are not fintech/regtech, and they are not global product or liquidity providers. I think that will be much more transparent going forward—that in reality it’s about creating convenience for the client, and that landscape is changing rapidly as the world is evolving. Airline companies and supermarkets are beginning to distribute financial services, because they have clients and they want to create convenience for clients, where really the client is the center of the universe. The future will also have to be digital.

Because cost and complexity has to come down, you cannot build a profitable business unless it’s digital first.

That’s going to be a key component.

Digital first means not only do you have a platform but the platform needs to engage with you, understand you, help you, and guide you. That is only going to get more sophisticated and more simple so as not to intimidate people. Once people understand the implications, that’s what they’d prefer.

If you know there’s an engine sitting with massive amount of data, proper machine learning, AI, logic and more, helping you answer your questions and maybe even guide you into thinking about new things you haven’t before, that’s a better service model than has ever been present in the financial industry, and if you can get that super service combined with cheap and accessible products and you can really trade and invest in the world, that’s the future I see ahead of us. Right now you have a mobile phone, soon you’ll have glasses. People are already talking about implants in the brain—though I’m not sure I like that. That’s a bit out in the future, but right now, it’s about making sure you get what you want on your device. wealtharabia.net

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INVESTMENT

Identifying a theme Major players all seem to be shifting into thematic investment.

Here’s why the trend is reshaping the investment world, according to Cedric Le Berre, Fund Selector and Porfolio Manager, Union Bancaire PrivÊe

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Agricultural technology is set to be a great investment for those following the theme of combating climate change.

wealtharabia.net

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F

ollowing macroeconomic trends is nothing new for the investment world. After all, understanding where the world is moving is one of the basic ways to identify where growth will come, be it in location or industry. Investment is not just about seeing where things are now, but where things will be. But in a time when finding value, and high returns, is more difficult than ever before for investors, more and more institutions are turning more towards thematic investing.

What is thematic investing? It’s simple—recognising major trends, and figuring out what potential investments stand to benefit from those trends.

This strategic thinking is becoming a major driver for the world’s biggest investment institutions.

“There has been a shift from traditional investing into thematic. it’s also very big pension funds across the world. I believe

this trend will grow in importance and it will reflect how the asset management is positioning,” Cedric Le Berre, Fund Selector and Porfolio Manager, Union Bacaire Privée tells WEALTH Arabia.

“We see all the big players coming to the market with thematic solutions, and I believe we’re just at the beginning of this big trend that will reshape the industry.”

“Fund picking has been very challenging in the last 10 years, especially with the core asset class, which is US equities, and also challenging on the fixed income side, and I think the solution comes from thematic investing.

If you think about the skillsets that you need to analyse companies that are in those disruptive innovation industries, if you think about the skillsets one needs to analyse companies like Alibaba which don’t fit in any definitions that benchmark are providing, you need to venture out of traditional investment and go into thematic,” he continues.

UBP has transformed its whole investment strategy towards equities towards thematic investing.

“What we have been working on doing is using a thematic lens in a way of addressing global equities. We just recently launched a strategy on that, using the best 14 or 15 thematic investment solutions, ranging from climate change, to demographics, consumption patterns, and disruptive innovation, to provide our clients with a global equity solution, but avoiding all the pitfalls of the old-fashioned way of investing which is relative return against benchmark, because we believe benchmarks are always backwards looking but not forward looking,” says Le Berre.

One of the themes that UBP has identified is climate change.

“In climate change, for example, we look for multi-energy efficiency but also all the alternative energies that are now

PHOTO CREDIT: Qilai Shen

China's push towards green energy will bring a lot of value towards investors moving forward.

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much more present. If you think about China, it’s planning to source its energy needs from not only the traditional nuclear but also solar and wind and that creates a lot of opportunities. It’s a tricky market and tricky industry because often you get subsidies to launch those businesses and at some point when those businesses are afloat, the government will pull out the subsidies so you have to be aware of that in order to drive your allocation,” says Le Berre.

“Water treatment is also very important. With a big turn in urbanisation, you need to make sure that you can give access to clean water to as many people that are coming into those cities. When you think about climate change, you also think about resource efficiency in a broader sense.

Typically we are investing in managers that are investing in industrials that are changing the way they manufacture.

When you think about how much money you spend on energy and water, when you have old fashioned resourses, and you can transition into companies that can provide you with facilities that are much more efficient, then it make sense for them to transition.”

Millenial behaviors driven by climate change are also an important consideration.

“Climate change also has to do with how people are ready to accept some of their governments decisions. When we think about how millennials are consuming, we need also to echo that way of consuming and way of deciding into the portfolios that we select,” says Le Berre.

“Further, agriculture is important when dealing with the theme of climate change. Here, we look for companies that are also providing farming with new technologies in order for them to be more efficient. Thinking about growing companies and software companies that provide agriculture with the possibility to look at their fields from a helicopter view, allowing them to better source their crops, using less or more crops depending on how the soils are irrigated, where the sun is coming and using fertiliser no longer in a plain way but focusing on areas that need more

or less. At the end of the day, they pay money for those services, but they will save a lot in terms of efficiency.”

Emerging markets in particular are driven by themes of consumption and urbanisation.

“In emerging markets, we’ve very much been looking at everything to do with consumption. That’s one of the key themes, because we think the story is intact. It’s not a new story, but there are more and more companies that are deriving earnings out of it, rather than having the US or European companies making money out of the consumption growth in Asia,” says Le Berre.

What we have been working on doing is using a thematic lens in a way of addressing global equities. We just recently launched a strategy on that, using the best 14 or 15 thematic investment solutions, ranging from climate change, to demographics, consumption patterns, and disruptive innovation Cedric Le Berre, Fund Selector and Porfolio Manager, Union Bacaire Privée

“The second theme is urbanisation that we’ve seen in EM, which is again not new, but if you think about how Singapore is a city sitting in EM but is also a developed city refurbishing its water system but also transferring some of its dockyards outside of the central vicinity and creating new residential areas, there are plenty of opportunities to identify companies that will benefit from that.”

Fintech development and adoption in emerging markets is also outpacing the developed world.

“The last element has to do with digitalisation and fintech. We see that in EM there is an early and quick adoption of all of those ways of using financial services, which I think is the key latemover advantage of emerging markets compared to the US and Europe, where people are much more reluctant to use their smartphone to book insurance, conclude a loan, or shift allocation in their portfolio for their pension fund,” says Le Berre.

Overall, the global economy in 2019 is better than most people predicted.

“I think it’s better than expected.

When we think about how we ended 2018, there was a lot of stress, a lot of pessimism building in, and we started on that ground in 2019 and the market has been surprisingly positive and supportive. People realise that the fear and a lot of the exuberance of the fall in the market in Q4 of last year was undue and there is a much better growth around the world. Not only in the US—it’s also a recollection of the emerging markets being seen as the spice you put in your portfolio rather than a growth engine for the world, and people are starting to realise that emerging markets are a driving force for all of us. It’s much better than expected when we entered the year.

I think the volatility that we had in August was also interesting because it also shows that things can go very quickly in the negative zone, and that one of the outcomes that’s very much 2019 rather than every other year is that the cursor can move very quickly,” says Le Berre.

“Another surprise was the valuetilted rally we had in September. This was one of the first—I remember in the last three years we always had, at some point in the year, a value driven rally, but this year it never happened so far and we had to wait until the end of August to see a shift in the market. Is it going to last? Is value back? We’ve all been tempted to answer that question in the past few years with a yes and have gotten our fingers burnt, so we refrain from rushing to the value rally, and that’s where we stand today.” wealtharabia.net

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INVESTMENT INVESTMENT

Continuing a track record of success Bill Doherty, CEO, Walton Global Investments Ltd and Tim Haywood, General Manager, Regional Vice President, Walton International Group Ltd speak with WEALTH Arabia about the Group’s expanded presence in the GCC 22

INVESTMENT

WEALTH Arabia speaks to Bill Doherty and Tim Haywood of the Walton Group of Companies.

C

ould you tell me about the history of the Walton Group of Companies?

D O H E RT Y: Wa l t o n is a family-owned and operated company that was founded in 1979 by my mother Maureen and my father Patrick in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

This is our 40th anniversary. I was only 10 years old at the time. My parents’ focus was on the real estate industry and my dad had been in the real estate business since the late 1950s.

My parents chose to focus on buying land in the path of development. Our humble beginnings began in Calgary acquiring small pieces of land which we held onto by raising capital through individual retail investors. It started off with family and friends, with small

portions of property around the city limits of Calgary, and the idea behind it was to wait until development approached our property and we would look to sell those properties off to third-party builders and developers.

Today, forty years later, we manage approximately 105,000 acres of land, with approximately 20,000 acres located in Alberta and Ontario, Canada with the balance located in the southern smile of the United States. The 105,000 acres of land equates to approximately $3.8 billion in assets under management.

We have operations around the globe with our head office in Calgary, Alberta. Our US headquarters is in Scottsdale, Arizona, with offices in Dallas, Texas and Washington D.C. Of course we have operations in Hong Kong, Singapore, Guangzhou and Shanghai. Most recently, in the last few months, we opened operations in Dubai. To be clear, the operations outside the borders of the United States and Canada are utilised to raise capital to invest into real estate in both Canada and the United States. We also employ, in the Walton Group of companies, the best-in-class engineers and planners to help us with the rezoning of our properties to bring them to the highest and best use so we can do one of two things—either sell our properties to third parties, or partner with third party builders or developers whereby we contribute the land and they contribute their expertise on building and developing and we develop the properties together bringing revenue and cash-flow back to our investment groups.

How did your international journey lead to you opening an office in Dubai?

DOHERTY: On a personal basis, I moved out to Hong Kong when I was 22 years old to help establish and build up our operations in Hong Kong, Singapore, Southeast Asia and Japan.

We were fortunate enough to be able to attract people to come in and work within the Walton Group of companies in these regional offices in Asia, one of them being Tim Haywood, the gentleman who is heading up our operation in Dubai. Tim has been with Walton for 12 and a half years, and if you go to our office in Hong Kong and Singapore, the average tenure of our employees is 12 to 15 years. Some people in our Hong Kong office have been working with us from the day we opened up the office in 1992. That continuity of not only our operations but with the same people who have grown with our company have helped us to create strong relationships with independent financial advisory markets, individual investors, and institutional partners alike.

T I M H AY W O O D : O u r distribution model is focused on our partnerships with wealth management groups throughout Asia and of course here in the Middle East. The rationale for opening up an operation here is that I was travelling extensively to Dubai to service our business partners, wealth management partners and investors, and it was clear that they needed more local support, so it made sense to open up operations here and be able to service them on the ground. There is a significant opportunity here to expand through the GCC region and beyond

The opportunity here is to expand through the GCC region in terms of our offerings, our business partnerships and our relationships into the different markets through wealth management groups, family offices, some of the banking institutions.

Tim Haywood, General Manager, Regional Vice President, Walton International Group Ltd

wealtharabia.net

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in terms of our offerings, our business partnerships and our relationships into the different markets through wealth management groups, family offices and banks. With our land asset management expertise, builder relationships and new product lines that we’re launching, we believe this is a good opportunity for expansion in the region.

What distinguishes the investors in the region? Is there a character to the region that you’ve recognised?

TIM HAYWOOD: There are two components for us really. There’s our traditional clientele introduced through wealth management groups who are typically retail investors, but our product is also Shari’ah-compliant and is therefore potentially suitable for the local market. For this region that is an interesting proposition, and we’ve already seen demand in markets such as Saudi Arabia because of this. We see that as a really good starting point, and from there it’s about looking at other opportunities in terms of our own product lines which can address different needs for the different demographic of clientele we meet, which should be an exciting opportunity for us.

Bill Doherty, CEO, Walton Global Investments Ltd

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Calgary, Alberta, Canada, where the Walton Group was founded in 1979

What were the conversations that led to achieving Shari’ahcompliance?

DOHERTY: We’d been discussing it for quite a while, so doing business out of our Singapore office for Malaysia and Indonesia, we began discussing it 7-8 years ago, and put it into action 3-4 years ago, gaining approval about three years ago. That was for our predevelopment land product, which is the cornerstone of the Walton Group of companies. We are going to be introducing another product to the marketplace within the next 60 days which we are going to work immediately in an effort to achieve Shari’ah compliance as well, which will be a cash-flowing product, an income-type product, which will be tied to a Fortune 500 company in the United States.

Could you tell me more about that project?

DOHERTY: We launched our first fund of this product in the United States in October, which is called the BOLD Fund, the Builder-Optioned Land Development Fund. With this, we work with national publicly-traded builders in the United States where they have assets they are looking to acquire, and instead of them acquiring those assets, we purchase the assets ourselves. We have an agreement in place where they will take down those assets phase by phase or by lot over a specified period of time. The first fund is tied to a Fortune 500 company who is the number one home builder in terms of volume. They will be our primary partner for this fund and for funds going forward. I have recently met with investment bankers in Europe

INVESTMENT INVESTMENT

to create a fund to be distributed in Europe and we’re looking to do the exact same thing in the Middle East.

T I M H AY W O O D : T h e distribution focus for the fund will be on a professional investor status, so there will be a specific target audience, such as family offices, banks and high net worth individuals who meet that criteria and who will be able to participate.

Tim Haywood, General Manager, Regional Vice President, Walton International Group Ltd

How has real estate landscape changed in the last 10 years?

DOHERTY: The regulatory thresholds are higher than they were 10 years ago, and that’s a good thing. It makes us all better at what we have to do. The amount of capital that is available on a global basis has increased significantly from our perspective, and it is a much more competitive landscape on a global basis. I would say 10 years ago

a company like ours that specialises in a certain asset class was one of only a few in Southeast Asia and Japan offering our products, and now there are many companies like ours offering all sorts of products from all corners of the world to all these different markets.

How do investors navigate that changed landscape?

DOHERTY: The amount of opportunities obviously have increased, but with that increase of opportunity and choice, I would propose that an individual will want to work with a financial advisor with a good strong history and an issuer such as the Walton Group of Companies that has a long history and a track record of delivering returns. We are already successful, and we believe we will continue to be successful. wealtharabia.net

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PHOTO CREDIT: Charles Adrien Fournier/Unsplash

INVESTMENT

Bahrain’s place in the fourth industrial revolution Sonya Mohamed Abdulla Janahi, Bahrain Chamber of Commerce & Industry Board Member, writes for WEALTH Arabia

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B

a h r a i n’s g e o g r a p h i c a l position, at the heart of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), in addition to its location in comparison to surrounding Arab nations, provides a strategic position and focal point for trade in the region. As the first GCC nation to move away from its dependence on oil, Bahrain is today the region’s most diversified and sustainable economy and leading financial hub.

To drive inward investments, Bahrain has strived to become a leading example of a business-friendly nation by providing a competitive environment that is also collaborative with international entities. Key provisions include no free zone restrictions, 100 per cent foreign ownership for a majority of activities and low operating costs.

With an extensive experience and a well-established institutional framework, Bahrain is a leading financial services hub that can place businesses on the map at the centre of a growing concentration of wealth and talent.

The regional market is expected to value $2 trillion by 2020 (Source: Bahrain Economic Development Board 2018), with those financial institutions who have established a strong foothold in the market expected to remain key players that drive not only the country and GCC’s development, but also that of the wider Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.

The financial sector, coupled with manufacturing, are key areas of growth which make the largest contributions to non-oil GDP at 17 per cent and 15 per cent respectively (Source: Bahrain Economic Development Board 2018).

For those companies that are looking at investment opportunities, these areas will continue to attract international interest.

Bahrain’s constant drive to accelerate the market is a result of various stakeholders across the public and private sector in Bahrain collectively working together to promote prosperity in the country. Furthermore, the Bahraini market has proven resilient amid current developments including the digital disruption that has emerged

through technological advancements that have impacted the global market.

Key indicators that have also supported Bahrain’s ability to accommodate the recent digital age includes its rank as 10th globally in mobile penetration rates (158.4 per cent), 5th globally in mobile broadband penetration rate (147.3 per cent) and third globally in internet users (98 per cent) (Source: Global Competitiveness Report, 2018).

A key sign of Bahrain’s ambitions has been the establishment of Bahrain FinTech Bay, which has quickly secured a reputation as the leading fintech hub in the region. Bahrain FinTech Bay provides a co-working space for collaborative and innovative efforts, as well as key projects including educational opportunities with leading international institutions and thought leadership initiatives under one collaborative platform with the intention of building a connected ecosystem both locally and regionally that can future-proof the financial services industry. Bahrain FinTech Bay is just one example of how Bahrain is cementing its place as a major hub of innovation situated at the vanguard of a new global digital economy as it accommodates emerging developments in the market.

Additionally, Bahrain has also been chosen as the destination for the esteemed 18th Arab Businessmen and Investors Conference (ABIC) and the 3rd edition of the World Entrepreneurs Investment Forum 2019 (WEIF 2019), with the slogan: '4th Industrial Revolution: Shaping the future - Digital disruptions for a better tomorrow’, the events will be held concurrently in the Kingdom of Bahrain from 11 to 13 November 2019.

The main objectives of the 18th Arab Businessmen and Investors Conference will be to represent a gathering that drives investment in entrepreneurship and innovation in the digital revolution in the Arab world. It will also highlight opportunities and challenges of the 4th Industrial Revolution to key stakeholders from the private and public sectors. Emphasis will also be made in understanding the need to move ahead and align with global developments

18th ABIC Spokesperson Sonya Mohamed Abdulla Janahi

and disruptive innovations which are driving major breakthroughs across many industries and sectors.

Students from the Arab region will be invited to participate in submitting their innovative business ideas with the opportunity of having them reviewed and recognised by designated experts.

Through its sponsors and partners, students will be awarded for their efforts and play an active role in inspiring and unleashing the spirit of innovation and entrepreneurship. Three winners from the region will be announced at the conference in November 2019 and an impressive cash price will be handed to them to facilitate converting their ideas into action.

All of these initiatives are in line with Bahrain’s Vision 2030 which aspires to shift from an economy built on oil wealth to a productive, globally competitive economy, shaped by government and driven by a pioneering private sector, an economy that raises a broad middle class of Bahrainis who enjoy good living standards from increased productivity and high-wage jobs. Our society and government will embrace the principles of sustainability, competitiveness, and fairness to ensure that every individual living and working in Bahrain has the means to live a secure a fulfilled life and reach his or her full potential. wealtharabia.net

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The continuing consequences of the Great Recession

M

o re t h a n a d e c a d e into the recovery that followed the Great Recession of 200809, many commentators and market participants believe we are in the late stages of the economic cycle that began as that crisis started to recede. To be clear, I am not offering any predictions about the timing of the next downturn or the outlook for global growth. But as financial markets watch for early indications of change on the horizon, one conclusion is inescapable: the economic environment in 2019 still bears the imprint of the events that unfolded in 2008-09. Far from breaking free of its effects, the global economy continues to be powerfully influenced by factors that either contributed to, or resulted directly from, the Great Recession.

Joe Brusuelas, chief economist at RSM, an audit and advisory firm, was quoted in the Washington Post 28

last September, saying, “[The Great Recession] was such a shock to the economic system that it unleashed dynamics that we still don’t understand fully.” This is nowhere more obvious than in the low and zero interest rate environment that still dominates the world’s major economic blocs.

Highly unorthodox central bank policies intended to provide what former UK Chancellor Alastair Darling has called “short-term shock therapy” have evolved into our new normal. There is no doubt that the unorthodox monetary policies in the immediate aftermath of the crisis such as QE1 helped to stave off a potential depression.

But our inability to dispense with these crisis-era measures has become a major problem, under mining confidence in the strength of the recovery and encouraging a continuing sense of fragility.

Against this background, I would highlight six crucial ways in which

PHOTO CREDIT: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg

Colin Moore, Global CIO, Columbia Threadneedle Investments, on the six big developments that came from the seismic shift in the financial landscape more than ten years ago

the causes and consequences of the Great Recession continue to dominate our outlook and define the room for maneuver.

DEBT HAS CONTINUED TO PILE UP Other than a brief pause during the worst of the crisis, the global stock of debt has carried on growing, aided by the sharp drop in interest rates by the major central banks from 2008 onwards and the introduction of quantitative easing.

Having reached around $180 trillion on the eve of the crisis, it has

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Alan Schwartz, Former President and CEO of Bear Stearns, one of the key fallen pieces of the financial crisis.

since climbed to about $250 trillion. If excessive debt was partly responsible for the Great Recession, there is no sign that this problem has been resolved.

Rather, its focus has shifted from private to public sector balance sheets, leaving governments reliant on deficit finance and central bank balance sheets bloated.

This will afford them very limited scope to act should they be required to come to the rescue again.

“TOO BIG TO FAIL” LIVES ON The term Too Big to Fail (TBTF) predates the Great Recession, having

been popularised in 1984 during the takeover by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation of Continental Illinois. But TBTF gained a new lease of life during the financial crisis as it became clear that the banking system is so interconnected that a crisis in one area can easily engulf the whole.

Today, governments and regulators have done what they can to manage the risks of TBTF – identifying systemically important institutions for additional oversight, mandating resolution plans for failing banks, and carrying out rigorous stress testing of assets and

liquidity. But there is no end in sight for TBTF. In fact, in the US, for example, the largest banks have increased their share of deposits since the crisis, further concentrating the market.

TBTF is here to stay because the Great Recession reminded us that governments cannot allow major banks to fail.

PRODUCTIVITY AND LABOR F O R C E G R O W T H H AV E STALLED Since the Great Recession, productivity growth in developed economies has wealtharabia.net

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CHINA’S INFLUENCE OVER THE WORLD ECONOMY HAS GROWN As China’s economy has claimed a steadily larger share of world economic output, the rest of the global economy has become more sensitive to any slowdown in China’s pace of growth.

This matters because concerns have also grown over the country’s spiraling stock of debt, which Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of England and former Chairman of the Financial Stability Board, has identified as a major threat to financial stability.

China protected its economic expansion during the Great Recession with the biggest stimulus package enacted in any country, largely channeled through its state-owned banks.

Banking assets almost doubled to 250 per cent of GDP, and debt exploded from 248 per cent of GDP to 441 per cent by September 2018. China has never exerted greater influence over the direction of the global economy.

ECONOMIC RECOVERY LEFT TOO MANY BEHIND As of mid-2019, the US economic recovery following the Great Recession is the longest on record, but it is also one of the weakest. In contrast, the US stock market has staged one of the strongest recoveries on record, benefiting owners of capital but contributing to worsening income inequality in the US. In 1970, family income at the 90th percentile was seven times higher than at the 10th percentile. By 2016, the gap had jumped to 13 times, with family incomes at the 10th percentile having shown almost no growth over that period. Growing income inequality across the developed 30

A bull statue stands outside the Shenzhen Stock Exchange building in Shenzhen, China, which has risen in importance after the Great Recession.

PHOTO CREDIT: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg

slowed sharply and weak labor-force growth has led to tight employment markets and skills shortages, which are a growing problem in Europe and Japan, and are particularly noticeable in the US. These two factors tend to impede consumption and encourage increasing leverage. If productivity performance fails to improve, monetary policymakers may have little choice but to intervene.

world is likely to have contributed to the rise of populist politics around the world.

GLOBALISATION HAS PETERED OUT The coordinated global reaction to the Great Recession was a prime example of international co-operation through the multilateral organisations set up following the Second World War. That spirit of co-operation has vanished.

Instead, nationalistic politics dominate, with countries such as China and Russia asserting their “great power” status increasingly aggressively and narrow self-interest dominating international relations. As a result, the globalisation that drove much of the world’s economic growth in the decades leading up to 2008 has ground to a halt. If another crisis were to take hold, it is not clear that countries would necessarily rekindle their former spirit of co-operation and connectedness.

These are some of the major legacies of the Great Recession that continue to dominate the global outlook more than a decade later. But with the advantage of hindsight, what lessons should we take from it for the future? One clear conclusion is that countries that took swift, decisive action to address their problems reaped big benefits. The US’s enforced recapitalisation of its banking system allowed it to recover quickly and increase its support for the real

economy. The contrast with Europe is telling.

European banks are still gradually recapitalising themselves more than 10 years later, leaving European companies, which are heavily reliant on bank finance, at an obvious disadvantage. The US’s economic outperformance relative to Europe since the Great Recession is arguably due in part to its robust banking sector, which supports the real economy in a way European banks cannot.

A second conclusion is that wellintentioned regulation in response to a crisis can sow the seeds of problems in the future. The Volker rule reduced the willingness of fixed income market makers on Wall Street to carry inventory in the way they had before the Great Recession.

Rules intended to make Wall Street banks safer have increased the risk that fixed income markets could see their liquidity dry up during periods of stress. Given sustained expansion in the stock of investment grade credit over the past decade, this has troubling implications.

The Great Recession may have given way to a period of sustained economic growth, especially in the US, but the crisis continues to cast a long shadow. As the world economy moves into its second decade of expansion, the effects of the previous crisis are still plain to see.

S U P P O R T E D BY

O R G A N I S E D BY

26 NOVEMBER 2019 The Ritz-Carlton, DIFC

Dubai, United Arab Emirates Award Categories • Best Bank in the Middle East • Banker of the Year • Lifetime Achievement Award • Fastest Growing Bank • Best Retail Bank • Best Islamic Bank • Best Corporate Bank • Best SME Bank • Capital Market Transaction of the Year • Most Innovative Digital Banking Proposition • Best Insurance Provider • Best Takaful Provider • Best Investment Bank – Conventional • Best Investment Bank – Islamic • Best Private Bank • Best Wealth Management Firm • Best Investment Management Firm • Best Private Equity Firm

Join over 400 senior banking and finance officials from across the Middle East as we honor the outstanding institutions that shape the region’s financial landscape.

• Best Trade Finance Institution

Now in its 20 year, the Banker Middle East Industry Awards programme is recognised as the most prestigious banking accolade celebrating financial excellence across the MENA region.

It acknowledges pioneering developments, innovative banking solutions, and achievements in the financial services industry.

• Best Research & Consultancy Firm

th

• Best Brokerage Solutions Provider • Best Law Firm – Banking & Finance • Best Law Firm – Private Equity • Best Ratings Agency • Best Islamic Ratings Agency • Best CSR Programme • Best Core Banking Service Provider • Best User-Experience Innovator • Best Cybersecurity Provider • Best Payment Solutions Provider

For table reservations, please email: awards@bankerme.net

• Best Communications Infrastructure Provider • Best Commercial Bank

PRIVATE BANKING

Vipul Kapur, Managing Director, Private Banking at Mashreq Bank speaks to WEALTH Arabia

The human touch Vipul Kapur, Managing Director, Private Banking at Mashreq Bank speaks to Wealth Arabia about the evolution of premium banking services

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I

n what direction do you see wealth management and premium banking services evolving?

Wealth management in the UAE has continued to evolve as one of the most strategic areas of growth for the banking sector. Thanks to initiatives by the government, regulations in the country have increasingly become favorable for investors looking to find sustainable sources of income as well as long term stability, positioning the nation as a fast emerging global financial hub for clients from all over the world. Adding to that, clients are increasingly taking measures to protect their risk by spreading their assets across several markets.

In this competitive market, wealth management service providers have to innovate in order to survive, moving from a traditional approach to a more tech-savvy digital route. Technologies like artificial intelligence, real-time analytics and roboadvisory are changing the way we analyse data available to us to offer our clients more meaningful value-added solutions. Enabling an easier ‘Know your Customer’ process is also of key importance, onboarding clients more seamlessly into the business while making operations efficient for the bank.

Ultimately the human touch remains utmost important in this segment. At Mashreq, we value the relationships we have built over decades owing to our customer-centric approach and putting our clients’ needs at the heart of everything that we do.

platforms to make wealth management simpler and seamless, we are able to offer our clients a superior and bespoke experience.

W hat are the challenges in that evolution?

One challenge with a digital evolution is attracting the required skill sets in your talent pool – people who are able to leverage the technology available to unlock the financial benefits that it has to offer. At Mashreq, we are a people driven business and acquiring the right talent has always been a priority for

us. Complemented by our extensive training programs, we ensure that we overcome this specific challenge a lot of companies are facing and deliver innovative and digital-led propositions to our tech-savvy clients.

Another challenge is the speed at which valuable insights and knowledge are transferred to our clients, allowing them to make fast and learned decisions about their investments. But by ensuring a round-the-clock wealth experience with both dedicated relationship managers and digital platforms, we are able to overcome this challenge so Vipul Kapur, Managing Director, Private Banking at Mashreq Bank

How is Mashreq adapting to that evolution?

Mashreq has always been an early adopter of technology in banking, and today is a digital leader in the UAE’s banking sector. We have made significant investments into incorporating digital within our comprehensive wealth management offering, enabling our relationship managers to provide clients with relevant information across asset classes with speed and agility to manage their investment portfolios in the most efficient way. By leveraging on digital wealtharabia.net

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PRIVATE BANKING

that our clients have access to real-time market information that empowers them to make informed decisions.

What distinguishes the HNWI clients in the UAE? HNWI clients in the UAE are a diverse group owing to the country’s strategic position as a safe haven for regional and international investors. Thanks to its geographically central location and geopolitical stability, clients here represent an extremely diverse demographic, having to navigate the regulatory requirements in their adopted country as well as their country of citizenship.

Wealth managers in the country have to go beyond just offering local expertise to truly being able to deliver a global banking experience and solutions How do you meet those needs in a way that your competitors do not?

As one of the oldest financial institutions in the country, Mashreq’s local expertise across wealth combined with global partnerships, offers our clients the best of both worlds. Through our Corporate & Investment Bank, International locations and Mashreq Capital division in DIFC; we are able to structure products that cater to the individual and unique needs of our clients based in the UAE and abroad.

Could you tell me more about the product and service offering you have for HNWI clients that you haven't already mentioned?

Mashreq has been serving clients for over 50 years and providing them with solutions across their banking, trade, financing, corporate and international requirements. We use our combined expertise and experience in all these divisions to offer clients a vast range of products and services. We are recognised as market leaders in providing bespoke structured solutions, real estate financing, international fixed income products including mutual funds, equity trading across 36 local and global exchanges, forex trading & insurance solutions for high net worth and private wealth clients.

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Oliver Kettlewell, Head of Fixed Income Mashreq Capital

Hazem Ayoub, Head of Investments Mashreq Bank

Mashreq Capital’s Fixed Maturity Plan success

Mashreq Bank announced recently that its 3.5 years Fixed Maturity Plan (FMP) Series 2 managed by the bank’s investment arm, Mashreq Capital, raised AED 191 million worth of subscriptions within four weeks of its launch.

The FMP series offers clients a portfolio of yield-generating bonds, with the second series targeting higher yields and a shorter maturity duration.

The FMP Series investment portfolio includes household names such as JP Morgan, Jaguar Land Rover and Adani Ports amongst others.

The initial offering period was open from 21 May until 25 June 2019, with the FMP Series 2 generating significant interest from Mashreq Bank’s private banking and gold clientele.

“As regional investors look to diversify their assets, the FMP series offers them with attractive yields and regular payouts within a globally diversified portfolio of investments spread across the Americas, Europe, Asia and the GCC. Mashreq Bank’s clients who have previously invested in Mashreq’s FMP Plan 1 are on track to receive 5.2 per cent annual yield with quarterly distribution. We are confident of delivering similar results for our investors as part of the series 2 plan,” said Oliver Kettlewell, Head of Fixed Income, Mashreq Capital.

“In light of the overwhelming success of the FMP Series 1, we are delighted to once again partner with Mashreq Capital (DIFC) Limited to produce a second round of the FMP. The strong demand from our clients reflects their confidence in our innovation investment solutions.

We continuously aim to tailor solutions which meet our clients’ needs and build on our offering to position Mashreq as a strong player in the wealth management space,” said Oliver Kettlewell, Head of Fixed Income, Mashreq Capital.

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MOTORING

The world’s fastest SUV hits the sand WEALTH Arabia takes a first spin with the Lamborghini Urus

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MOTORING

I

t’s been nearly 400 years since the Urus roamed the earth. The Urus, also called the Aurochs, were a mythic ancestor of the modern bull, appearing in cave paintings and art from many periods of human history.

While they were avidly hunted until humanity started to realise that they were nearly gone, the Urus was a wild beast, with a strength and mystique that domesticated cattle couldn’t match, with long, strong horns that projected power that still resonates until today.

Lamborghini, in naming its first foray into the world of the Sport Utility Vehicle (SUV) the ‘Urus’, is signaling something important—that while this is a more practicle and versatile vehicle than the supercars for which they are best known, their SUV maintains the wild heart of its flashier kin.

In fact, Lamborghini has decided that the label of SUV is not sufficient.

The Urus not just as sport utility vehicle, it is a Super Sport Utility Vehicle—an SSUV. It backs up that

label—the 2019 Urus is the world’s fastest SUV. When the first model was first announced in 2017, the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Automobili Lamborghini, Stefano Domenicali, had much to say about the vehicle.

“The Lamborghini Urus is a visionary approach based on the infusion of Lamborghini DNA into the most versatile vehicle, the SUV. The Urus elevates the SUV to a level not previously possible, the Super SUV. It is wealtharabia.net

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MOTORING

a true Lamborghini in terms of design, performance, driving dynamics and emotion as well as drivable every day in a range of environments. The Urus fits perfectly within the Lamborghini family as a high-performance car.

It is the culmination of intensive development and passionate skill to create a new breed of bull: A Super SUV that transcends the boundaries of expectations and opens the door to new possibilities, for both our brand and our customers,” he said.

Delivering 650 hp (478 kW) at 6,000 rpm, maximum 6,800 rpm and a maximum torque of 850 Nm at 2,2504,500 rpm, the Urus has a specific power of 162.7 hp/l. With a curb weight lower than 2,200 kg the Urus is the SUV with the best weight-to-power ratio at 3.38 kg/hp.

So how does the world’s fastest SUV measure up exactly? Let’s start with acceleration—the Urus accelerates from 0-100 km/h in 3.6 seconds, 0-200 km/h in 12.8 seconds and boasts a top speed of 305 km/h. Braking is no less impressive: the Urus decelerates from 100 km/h to 0 in 33.7 m.

Under the hood, the Urus sports a new front-mounted, 4.0 liter petrol V8 twin-turbo aluminum engine.

The choice of a turbo engine, the first in a Lamborghini, reflects the desired usage range of the Urus.

Especially in off-road conditions a high level of torque at low revs is necessary and can be guaranteed only by such an engine, providing 38

MOTORING

wealtharabia.net

39

MOTORING

optimal engine responsiveness and efficiency. Delivering 650 hp (478 kW) at 6,000 rpm, maximum 6,800 rpm and a maximum torque of 850 Nm at 2,250-4,500 rpm, the Urus has a specific power of 162.7 hp/l. With a curb weight lower than 2,200 kg the Urus is the SUV with the best weightto-power ratio at 3.38 kg/hp.

The engine’s build is pivotal to its strength. According to Lamborghini, compact engine optimises the car’s center of gravity through its lowmounted position. With a central turbo charger layout close to the combustion chambers, optimum engine responsiveness is assured. The twinscroll turbochargers run in parallel, providing maximum power in full-load conditions. This reduces turbo lag and ensures maximum torque and smooth provision of power throughout the torque curve, even at low speeds. Two separate exhaust flows complement the cylinder firing sequence by eliminating cross-interference in the exhaust gas cycle. With a double overhead camshaft and variable valve timing, new cylinder-liner technology reduces weight while ensuring the highest performance from the eight-cylinder engine. Cylinder deactivation reduces fuel consumption for a perfect balance between vehicle performance and efficient engine function.

The hard part will be finding places to put all of that power to the test, but even when you cannot push the car to its limits, you will feel its strength, and the true heart of the Lamborghini, just as Domenicali promised, underneath you.

For the most part, of course, testing the car will not be your main aim— and while the car still stands out and is unmistakably a Lamborghini, it also is held in a body that fits any terrain.

Complete with low-line coupé styling and commanding road position belie the very comfortable ride, higher ground clearance, and luxurious space within together with the latest technologies, but without being over-sized enough to stop it from being practical for everyday use. It’s built for the long drive home, 40

the weekend road trip and all the adventure it might bring, while also being a car that can be driven purely for pleasure, the sports car that the name Lamborghini promises.

The Urus’s automatic eight-speed gearbox is built for responsiveness and efficiency, tuned to provide very short low gear ratios and longer high gears. A slipcontrolled converter lock-up clutch and

specially-developed torque converter, with an exceptionally powerful starting ratio for exciting acceleration, and high speed at low engine revs for optimal fuel consumption and emissions. Highly efficient gear braking is also assured.

The cars four-wheel drive system is designed to deliver safe, highlyresponsive driving dynamics on every road and surface, in all weather,

MOTORING

according to Lamborghini. A Torsen central self-locking differential provides maximum control and agility in all driving conditions, particularly off-road.

Torque is split 40/60 to the independent front/rear axle as standard, with a dynamic maximum torque of 70 per cent to the front or 87 per cent to the rear, enhancing traction to the axle with higher ground friction.

The Urus features active torque vectoring via a rear differential, enabling propulsive power to be instantly distributed to each individual wheel for enhanced traction, depending on the driving mode, driving style and the road grip. Torque vectoring also provides additional steering control: Less steering effort is required, with enhanced agility allowing

higher cornering speeds and a more sporty drive.

Let’s talk about the driving modes: In STRADA, TERRA (off-road) and NEVE (snow) torque vectoring reduces understeer for safe and simple driving.

In SPORT and CORSA torque vectoring allows the Urus to become more agile with a greater oversteer character—interaction between the four-wheel drive system and ESC manages oversteer to enable a precise and fun drive. In SABBIA (sand) mode, the system is calibrated to guarantee agility and precision on terrains with reduced grip such as on gravel or sand dunes, making it the ideal mode for offroad fun.

The Lamborghini Urus adopts the rear-wheel steering introduced in the Aventador S over the whole speed range. The rear steering angle varies

The hard part will be finding places to put all of that power to the test, but even when you cannot push the car to its limits, you will feel its strength, and the true heart of the Lamborghini, just as Domenicali promised, underneath you. up to +/- 3.0 degrees, according to vehicle speed and driving mode selected: at low speeds the rear-axle steering angle is opposite to that of the front wheels (counter-phase steering), effectively shortening the wheelbase up to 600 mm for increased agility and a reduced turning circle for increased maneuverability. At high speeds the rear axle steering angle is in the same direction as the front wheels (in-phase steering), elongating the wheelbase up to 600 mm for increased stability and ride comfort as well as optimum driving dynamics. wealtharabia.net

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MOTORING

A 360-degree approach to engine, exhaust system and chassis ensures daily usability with the reduction of unwanted mechanical noise, while maintaining the emotive Lamborghini driving experience and inimitable Lamborghini sound.

Depending on the driving mode selected via the Tamburo, the V8 engine has been calibrated to vary the sound and feel of the Urus, from the quietest and most comfortable low-frequency sounds in STRADA mode, to a sportier and more exciting Lamborghini sound and feedback in CORSA. A specially-developed exhaust system also customises the sound output dependent on engine speed: at high acceleration, the Urus produces a more guttural, sporty sound and chassis feedback.

The Tamburo driving mode selector on the center console controls all dynamic vehicle systems and allows the selection of driving dynamics according to surface conditions or drivers’ preference, via STRADA, SPORT and CORSA as well the additional NEVE (snow) mode. As an option, two further off-road settings are offered: TERRA (off-road) and SABBIA (sand).

In STRADA mode the height adapts according to speed to enhance comfort, while in SPORT the Urus lowers to ensure stability and precision at all speeds. In CORSA the vehicle is even more precise and performance oriented with roll at a minimum. In the three off-road modes, NEVE, TERRA and SABBIA higher ground clearance allows obstacles to be safely overcome, with anti-roll bars providing independent asymmetric movement during cornering to ensure optimal traction.

While you may not get the chance to try out NEVE in its full glory within the Middle East, the SABBIA and TERRA modes, in WEALTH Arabia’s testing, work wonders, making the car more capable for your weekend journeys than one might expect— though we wouldn’t recommend using it the same dune bashing as your 4X4.

The TERRA and SABBIA off-road 42

MOTORING

package is optional, but we would say don’t get the car without it in the Middle East why limit yourself ?

Inside the car, the Urus is specified with a Unicolour leather and trim in either Nero Ade or Grigio Octans and five additional optional colours.

Dual-colour Bicolour Elegante and Bicolour Sportivo specifications with options of both leather and Alcantara are also available. Stitching options and complementary seat belt, floor mat and carpet colours allow clients to customise their Urus in a more sporty or elegant style as required.

The dashboard trim is finished in Piano Black and Brushed Aluminum as standard. Optional finishes are offered in Open Pore wood including a combination with aluminum, and a carbon fiber alternative.

The touchscreen is as good as you’d expect from a car of this calbire, with an LIS touchscreen infotainment display across two screens, integrated within the Urus’ interior above the center ‘Tamburo’. The upper screen is the key interface for entertainment, managing functions such as media, navigation, telephone and car status information.

The lower screen provides a keyboard and hand-writing-compatible screen for inputting information and controlling functions such as climate control and seat heating.

The LIS III integrates innovative connected voice control, able to recognise natural-dialogue voice commands to manage functions such as music, telephone calls or send text messages.

Included as standard is a phone holder compartment with wireless charging and voice control; a personal memory profile, USB connections, Bluetooth media streaming, DVD player and a sound.

While drivers in the Middle East may option to stick with the more classic Lamborghini design, the Urus is a good practical compliment, and, for those who want their more practical vehicle to have further limits than any other SUV in their garage, this is the car for you. The Urus gets a hearty recommendation. wealtharabia.net

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ART

40 years after the Stars Group changed the Eastern art world forever, Sotheby’s has brought together the work of Huang Rui to put the beloved artist in context

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China’s abstract master

ART

PHOTO CREDIT: © Huang Rui. Courtesy Boers-Li Gallery, Beijing/New York

PHOTO CREDIT: © Huang Rui. Courtesy Boers-Li Gallery, Beijing/New York

TOP RIGHT: Huan Rui in Beijing, 1981, before leaving to Tokyo in 1984.

TOP LEFT: Huang Rui's speech after the protest march in 1979 at the birth of a movement.

BOTTOM LEFT: Huang Rui displaying work during his Japan period.

PHOTO CREDIT: © Huang Rui. Courtesy Boers-Li Gallery, Beijing/New York

I

t’s been 40 years since one of the most significant moments in the history of Chinese contemporary art took place, led by artist Huang Rui. On 27 September, 1979, the Stars Art Group held the Stars Art Exhibition, an unpermitted exhibition that showed off the group’s avant-garde self-taught stylings, imbued with the same energy as the post-impressionist and abstract expressionist movements, in direct opposition to the permitted styles in China at the time.

After the group, which was made up of almost two dozen artists, were denied an official permit to show their work, the group staged an act of defiance.

They exhibited their art on the railings outside the China Art Gallery in Beijing, now called the National Art Museum of China, protesting the suppression of artistic expression after China’s cultural revolution. Though the exhibition drew worldwide attention, it was closed by the Chinese police. Nevertheless, it cemented the moment as one of the most significant of China’s artistic progression, a moment that changed the

Chinese art world and its artists forever.

The moment’s aesthetic drew heavily from the cultural and political context at the times, rather than being purely about fitting a certain style that matched the global zeitgeist.

“The 23 artists were thus in search of a new language for a new people—a new sense of ‘the people’. The two interrelated features stand out in this search and related exploration. With the break-up of the official revolutionary aesthetic, there was an attempt to invent new kinds of words and images drawn from many non-official sources At the same time, this search for a new sensibility and new way of sharing it went together with attempts to construct in the city itself new common spaces, where these new images and words could be made public—language posed on walls, carried on posters in the streets, urban exhibitions and the crowds to draw them, in short, new ways of assembling, coming together,” says Professor John Rajchman.

“These two aspects, aesthetic and political, were in fact inseparable. It wealtharabia.net

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ART

was just when text and image flew free from any official revolutionary prescription that ‘the people’ were no longer fixed in some already given story or grand epic. Conversely, the ‘Chinese people of today’ were to be found instead in concrete experiences and related living conditions and the new aesthetic means to render them.

In the absence of any official history or over-arching narrative, subjective and historical, private ad public could no longer be neatly separated, and artists and writers were called upon to carry on in common a sort of experiment in self-invention and self-affirmation.”

The moment, of course did not come out of nowhere. One of the leaders of the Stars Art Group was Huang Rui, who remained active with fellow artists such as Ai Weiwei, Mao Lizi, Wang Keping, Ma Desheng and Li Shuang until 1983. They had previously held showings in private homes, which also acted as cultural salons that allowed a freedom of discussion that public forums did not. Rui was a leader not just as an artist, also publishing the literary journal Today, which was also considered radical in its expression and thought. “ I a m c o n s t a n t l y a c t i vat i n g methodologies to counter the times,” says Rui, speaking to Bianca Chu, Deputy Director, S2 London, about founding Stars Group.

“I am a painter and I have encountered many obstacles in my own life. Some of them are knowledge barriers because the status quo of the society does not match. Another is that there are some political obstacles. Political obstacles are constantly interfering or destroying some academic experiments. These two factors make me feel that I have to put myself into the practice of social action. In this case, in addition to protecting myself, I can begin to make an attempt. This is the most ideal situation: establishing an attempt can give us access to platforms and freedoms from the grass roots level that can counter the damage.”

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PHOTO CREDIT: Sotheby's

ART

Huang Rui’s story is a fascinating one. Now in 2019, he receives the acclaim and respect worldwide that he has always deserved, but it was a long road to reach this point. Sotheby’s, in its S2 space in London, has brought together a large selection sourced from all around the world of Rui’s paintings for sale in an exhibition entitled Wild Children, named after the way Rui himself referred to his art in an email to Sotheby’s. The work itself is revelatory, showing how much the artist grew and change in his winding path both out of China and back within.

After 1983, the Stars Art Group spread all around the world. Rui himself left China in 1984 to go to Japan. China, of course, did not stop developing without him. 1985 brought the New Wave Movement, or Bawu Yundong, in which 79 groups made up of 2,250 artists emerged, following the strong avant-garde path that Rui and his 11 contemporaries had laid the groundwork for, pushing forward the conversation about artistic expression in a culturally suppressed society.

Rui himself, of course, did not stop developing. Huang’s own art easily fits the description laid out by Rajchman, with a radical new style that also incorporated words from Chinese propaganda and even the writings of Confucius. That style continued into his time in Japan.

His art can be broken into periods.

First, his Stars Period (1979-84), in which he was “indebted to European masters such as Cezanne and Picasso for his constant research of the relation between shapes and colours, texture (volume) and space,” says Bérénice Angremy, a key figure of the Beijing art scene today. In his Japanese Period (1984-2000), Hui was focused on the “duality of colors and materials (texture of canvas and paint), whether it is in his two-tone or monochrome paintings, in a way that I much more gestural than what he did in China.”

“I was already in Japan in 1985 working on my own individual experimentation. From my own position, I wasn’t connected with this wealtharabia.net

47

’85 movement. This opening up of intellectual discussion and debate was an attempt to modernise China, including school education, the opening up of markets, and so on. I was not in China at this time. But I can say that I am free to find the road of abstraction, of course, it is also inseparable from the information dissemination and acceptance of Western culture,” says Rui. “After I arrived in Japan in 1984, I quickly held an exhibition. I was fortunate enough to meet a famous calligrapher. He is very influential. He knew these Gutai artists. He told them to come and visit, saying ‘you should go to see Huang Rui's exhibition.’

Among them were Shiraga Kazuo, Sadamasa Motonaga, and two later artists, including Sadaharu Horio…

The Gutai group and later the Monoha group had been very sensitive to the development of avant-garde art in Asia as a whole (especially East Asia China, Japan, Korea). There was a connection that was being tested, but there was a personal emotional connection between Shiraga-san and myself.”

Though he participated in the Japanese art scene, Rui kept a close eye on his home of China, even making art that responded to the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. China was always remained a big part of who he was, and what formed him, and, in turn, who he became, which can most easily be seen in his continuous use and dialogue with the color red.

“I was born in Beijing. I participated in the Red Revolution, the Cultural Revolution. These are two typical colour symbols that give a strong mark to young people who grew up in the city. Another is that in the process of exploring traditional culture, I learned ink painting. I also have good friends in the Forbidden City. These many experiences made me feel that red is also a kind of ‘history’. Not only is the current regime advertised, but it is a colour that is used for a long time when some political rights are used to open the distance from the bottom of society. For example, the Tang Dynasty is like this. The Tang Dynasty loves to 48

PHOTO CREDIT: © Huang Rui. Courtesy Boers-Li Gallery, Beijing/New York

ART

Huang Rui studio in Osaka

ART

PHOTO CREDIT: Sotheby's

use expensive purple and red-purple.

This colour signifies that your official position is approaching the royal level. The colour of the walls of the Forbidden City came from the Han Dynasty. The Qing Dynasty used this colour when looking for orthodox culture. These histories are particularly worth investigating and they are also my research topics. From colour, orientation, and space, they form some propositions and three-dimensional structures. I think I have a certain say in traditional elements, including colour, line, position or space. I know their historical origin,” says Rui. In 2000, Rui returned to China, unlike some of his Stars Group contemporaries who remained in self-imposed exile. The return was a fortuitous one, bringing Rui into a different Chinese context, with many changes since he had left. Nevertheless, he remained as forward thinking as ever, launching Beijing 798 in order to continue to push Chinese art forward.

“In my experience, I believe this Japanese way of thinking has become a Chinese way of thinking. For the creative process, the artist has to be able to think his art freely. After 2000, I came back to Beijing and launched the concept of ‘Beijing 798’. Beijing at the start of 798 was very much like a so-called ‘Art Centre’ city,” says Rui. Even with the developments that the Chinese art scene has made, Rui is still worried that any more attempts to stifle free expression could destroy what he and the legion of artists of China have created.

“If Beijing does not continue to sustain this kind of openness as a testing ground of free thought, it risks becoming, and has already begun to transform into, a testing ground for the destruction of artistic hope,” says Rui. Sotheby’s Wild Children project, for which the art will be up for sale, brings all his disparate pieces produced in multiple countries back together, capturing what is truly one of the “great masters of abstract art in China”, according to Angremy.

PHOTO CREDIT: Sotheby's

wealtharabia.net

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EVENTS

Join us at Mina A’Salam on 19 November

A

fter a successful event that brought together people from across the retail investment landscape to discuss the most pressing issues with substantive and actionable analysis, we are pleased to announce the next edition of the WEALTH Arabia Summit will be held at Mina A'Salam, Madinat Jumeirah in Dubai on 19 November.

Once again, we will continue to grow and evolve, making sure that the Summit remains a vital part of your calendar, and an excellent chance for you to interact with your peers in the investment world.

This year's Summit, in addition to a focus on the latest trends affecting invesment and how investors can respond, we will be focusing on technology in a separate session, allowing us to dig deeper in one of the most important subjects on investors' minds.

The WEALTH Arabia Summit was begun with the idea to be a candid platform for the world’s greatest investment minds from every sector to share their knowledge and debate the future. We promise that the fourth edition of the Summit will be its best yet.

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