Wealth & Investment Summit 2024

Overview

The market for providing wealth management, high yield investments and services to high-net-worth-individuals and families privileged with great prosperity is continuing to grow across our region. Backed by determined governments, forward thinking regulators and desirable life style opportunities that are attracting the prosperous from outside of the region, key locations in the GCC are transforming into global wealth booking centres and investment management hubs.

As the market further establishes its strengths, the gravitational pull it exerts will further attract service providers of all sizes into the region, expanding the range of options and provision for servicing the increasing wealth sector. And with new generations inheriting or generating wealth, their needs and principles will shape the future of this rapidly expanding market and how it invests. What this means for banks, private banks, investment houses, family offices, regulators and wealth technology vendors will be debated by our experienced panellists form leading businesses at the heart of this exciting and highly active market.

The 2024 MEA Finance, Wealth and Investment Summit will interrogate the growth, assess the challenges and attempt to predict the future of the regional wealth and investment services sector. Based on the lively and enthusiastic sessions at this summit in previous years, all in the presence of market professionals, business leaders, product specialists and users, we can again expect to be privileged with informed, avid debate and eye-opening insights from across the range of leading businesses and service providers to the market.

Agenda

Tuesday, 12 November 2024
The Ritz-Carlton Hotel, JBR Dubai UAE

08:00 - 09:00 Registration & Networking

09:00 - 09:05 Opening Note

09:05 - 09:15 Welcome Note

09:15 - 09:30 Keynote Address

09:30 - 10:15 Panel 1: Passed and Present - Succession and Estate Planning in the Middle East

With huge regional transfer of wealth across generations, there remain a majority of HNWIs with inadequate succession plans. Is this changing, and what are the immediate family and wider effects of insufficient planning? And with more regional and international HNW and ultra HNW individuals resident in the region, their assets will have to be included in their global tax and estate planning strategies. How well equipped is the region to ensure families can best manage their assets and wealth in the present? How, approaching 2025, does our region compare with other global hubs for such specialist services?

10:15 - 10:30 PRESENTATION

10:30 - 11:15 Panel 2: What is Private Banking Today?

With the activities of private banks, family offices, digital platforms, independent asset managers and insurance providers frequently overlapping, and once exclusive services becoming more widely available, does the term retain the meaning or the cachet it once did? Are transparency demands and growing regulatory requirements, eroding the concept of Private Banking? Is Wealth Management the better term for the times, or should defined Private Banking now require the adopting and provision of fiduciary standards, prioritising advising clients according to their needs, without hidden costs or conflicts of interests arising from specific product sales?

11:15 - 11:45 COFFEE BREAK

11:45 - 12:00 PRESENTATION

12:00 - 12:45 Panel 3: The Family Office and Philanthropy in the Middle East

Philanthropy is granted a serious place in the ongoing considerations of wealthy families in the region – why is this? One of the key obligations of a family office is to establish a purpose aligned with the family's resources, objectives and beliefs. So how are family offices in the region working these requirements into family plans or constitutions in the light of generational change, wealth handover and evolving philanthropic priorities as societies develop. Also, with many HNWIs migrating into the region from other countries and cultures, is the proportion of wealth dedicated to philanthropy here increasing, decreasing or remaining about the same? If so, where and how will family offices in our region advice the deployment of their financial power and influence to improve societal conditions?

12:45 - 13:45 LUNCH

13:45 - 14:30 Panel 4: Family Office

What factors are attracting Family Offices to set up our region? Is it the growth of the HNWI class as economies grow, individuals and families becoming more fiscally knowledgeable or cognisant of opportunities arising from better management, the resident wealthy investing higher proportions locally as regional economies grow and become more sophisticated or are there other factors such as modern and stronger regulatory frameworks? Are providers now setting up in the region coming into the game too late? Do longer established service providers have the advantage? How much room for the growth of FO service providers is there in our region?

14:30 - 15:15 Panel 5: Wealth Technology & AI - What it means to the market and can AI itself be an asset class?

Technology and AI are embedding deeper into the region’s wealth business. Routine tasks are increasingly handled by machine, freeing wealth managers to focus more on strategy, theoretically improving service quality and results. Are there further opportunities that AI can offer to wealth managers? Can technology and digitisation foster new relationships and bonds of loyalty between wealth managers and their clients and how will it affect competition between service providers across our region? Are wealth technology and AI themselves viable asset classes, and if a positively productive investment, how long may they remain so?

15:15 - 15:45 Panel 6: Building Portfolios – Real Estate Investment Trends and Determining Factors

While real estate is commonly understood as an investment class, what forms does real estate investment take for the regions HNWIs? Are particular market sectors showing better promise than others and are investors looking beyond the region for global opportunities? Are REITs, either in our region or beyond still on the radar for investors and are investment decisions now being made based on sustainability or the environmental impacts of developments or projects? And what of AI – what role is this playing or expected to play in real estate investments for HNWIs?

15:45 - 16:15 COFFEE BREAK/NETWORKING

16:15 - 16:20 CLOSING REMARKS

Speakers

Abdallah Baassiri Senior International Private WealthPWC
Amer Malik Head of Middle East InternationalLombard Odier
Anita Gupta Head of Equity StrategyEmirates NBD
Biju Thomas Senior Director & Head of Family OfficesMashreq Private Banking
Bryan Stirewalt Financial Services Regulatory LeaderEY
Christiane El Habre Regional Managing DirectorApex Group
Daniel George Head of Business - Middle EastSt. James’s Place
Deepak Mehra Chief EconomistCommercial Bank of Dubai
Devika Raveendran Founder & CEODR Partners
Ekta Tolani Chief Investment OfficerKBW Ventures
Farzad Billimoria Managing Director, Senior Executive Officer & Head - Private BankingHSBC
George Hojeige Chief Executive OfficerVirtugroup
Ismael Hajjar PartnerPwC Middle East
Jaspreet Randhawa Head of InvestmentsBurkhan World Investments
Khulood Ebrahim Real Assets Product SpecialistInvestcorp
Leevyn Isabel Commercial Director - Middle EastOcorian
Lixia Zhu Managing Director76Columbus Family Office
Maher Al Kaabi Advisor to Group Chairman and Independent Board Member | UAE Circular Economy Council MemberAl Serkal Group
Michel Sarfati Head of Global Private Banks & Family Offices SalesFirst Abu Dhabi Bank FAB
Mohamed Fairooz Middle East LeadSC Ventures
Nabil Ismail Executive DirectorGulf Capital
Neelam Verma Advisory Committee MemberSecura International
Niels Zilkens Head of Wealth ManagementUBS
Niraj Naetsawan General Manager and Head of Middle EastAdditiv
Patrick Armstrong Chief Investment OfficerPlurimi
Ramzy Rasamny Executive ChairmanPlurimi
Saad Osseiran Head of Private Bank for Middle EastDeutsche Bank
Safa Bouzidi Managing Director of Wealth & Asset ManagementDaman Investments
Shadi AlNasr Director, Client Strategist - Global Family OfficeBNY Wealth
Shadi Hittini Head of Wealth ManagementAjman Bank
Taimur Satti Senior Executive Officer, DubaiPlurimi
Vipul Kapur Head of Private BankingMashreq Private Banking
Vipul Malhan Senior DirectorMashreq Private Banking
Vishal Bhatia Executive Director-Regional Head, Wealth Management Lending and Mortgages, EAME and UAEStandard Chartered Bank
Yann Mrazek Managing DirectorM/HQ
Zubin Muriya Executive DirectorJulius Baer