A DUBAI travel expert has revealed how to save money on restaurants and bars – plus how to find the best hidden gems.

Dubai is a luxurious travel destination in the United Arab Emirates, boasting both architectural masterpieces and sandy beaches.

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The scorching temperatures of up to 43 degrees in the summer months may deter tourists until the winter as temperatures drop to a milder 24 degrees.

But waiting with the crowd to then push through them in the winter months can make hidden gem discoveries a bit more difficult.

Luckily, an exclusive guide to Dubai’s hidden gems has already been created by top Dubai Travel Experts.

Anuja Bhagat, Marketing Manager at Away Holidays says: “With this insider’s guide from our Dubai Travel Expert, travellers can experience Dubai beyond the typical tourist spots, discovering hidden gems and experiencing the city through a local lens.

“For those looking to book a holiday to Dubai, we have a variety of packages to choose from, catered to a variety of interests and budgets.”

Where are the hidden gems?

Dubai Travel Expert, Neela Goyal suggests visiting Alserkal Avenue.

It’s both a cultural landmark and arts hub in Al Quoz, with art galleries, indie cafes, and creative workshops.

Meanwhile, hidden in the winding lanes of AI Fahidi Historical District is the Coffee Museum.

It offers an escape from the crowd and is a place where visitors can relax and learn about the roasting and brewing styles of coffee.

Continuing with cultural recommendations is Dubai’s Heritage Village near Dubai Creek.

The area is free to visit and you will be able to experience traditional markets, or visit mosques such as Jumeirah Mosque – open to non-Muslim visitors.

Experts also recommend the Dubai Opera in Downtown Dubai where visitors can dine in and experience theatre, opera, ballet, concerts, conferences or exhibitions.

Or visit the Dubai Museum, based in Al Fahidi Fort, also the oldest existing building in Dubai, showcases traditional emirate life.

Moving onto outdoorsy recommendations, is the Ras AI Khor Wildlife Sanctuary, it’s free of charge, and home to a large number of flamingos

AI Qudra Lakes is great to visit in the winter months as it’s all vast desert land – surrounded by artificial lakes.

It’s hard to believe you are near one of the biggest cities in the world when you visit this surreal landscape.

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How do I save money?

To get buy-one-get-one-free deals on dining, attractions, and other activities, experts suggest downloading the Entertainer App.

It could be a great way to save money if you are keen to immerse yourself in Dubai.

Another suggestion, is to keep an eye out for happy-hour deals.

Traditional market places can be wallet friendly too – plus spending money on them can keep independent businesses afloat.

Some of these recommendations include the Gold Souk and Spice Souk both situated in Dubai’s business district, Deir.

Look out for Mandi, Khuzi, Falafel, and fresh juices in these traditional Emirati street food markets too.

Another big way to save money is avoid taxis.

Instead, experts suggest using the Dubai Metro.

It’s a quick and easy metro service and you can spend the spare change on more recommendations. from this guide.

Small US endowments and foundations are racing to outsource their investment management in the hopes of getting access to profitable but illiquid alternative markets amid growing funding challenges.

The funds collectively control trillions of dollars in assets but have struggled to generate consistent returns. The outsourcing boom has come as endowments and foundations increasingly rely on investment gains to meet funding needs, after other revenue sources became more volatile and operational costs jumped. It has coincided with a push into alternative asset classes such as private equity and venture capital in an effort to improve results.

While the embrace of an outsourced chief investment officer is aimed at improving performance, it has also reduced overhead costs in many instances — by eliminating the roles of in-house teams that used to do the job.

Multiple studies have found surging use of external managers by foundations and endowments. A study by the Commonfund and the Council on Foundations found 39 per cent of private foundations reported using an OCIO last year, up from 24 per cent in 2018. Another, by Captrust, an investment advisory firm in North Carolina, found the number which worked with an OCIO had doubled since 2020.

External investment managers, backed by leading Wall Street banks and consultancies, said they are in a better position to navigate private investments than many small funds that lack capacity and access.

But how much OCIOs benefit their clients remains unclear: they barely outperformed several popular investment benchmarks over the past decade.

“OCIO is not a panacea,” said Dennis Simmons, executive director of the Committee on Investment of Employee Benefit Assets, who had studied the practice. “It is not guaranteed to outperform an in-house team.”

By the end of June, Boston-based NEPC, an institutional investment consultancy, had managed $14bn for endowments and foundations as an OCIO. That was up 48 per cent from three years ago. “It is a part of the market that continues to grow materially,” said Scott Perry, head of portfolio strategy at NEPC.

US inflation-adjusted charitable donations fell 2.1 per cent last year following an 11 per cent slump in 2022, according to the Giving USA Foundation, thanks to surging inflation and pandemic-driven economic uncertainty that made Americans less generous.

A drop in college enrolment has imposed extra pressure on higher education as tuition income and government spending shrank. The problem is exacerbated by rising costs that caused “the power of each of your grant-making dollars to go down”, said Ned Rosenman, head of OCIO for endowments, foundations and family offices at BlackRock.

Mediocre investment performance has taken another toll on non-profit organisations. A study published this month by BlackRock shows US endowments with investable assets of between $251mn and $1bn have on average failed to generate the widely-accepted industry benchmark of 7.5 per cent annual return over the past 15 and 20 years.

Endowments and foundations “have really faced kind of a perfect storm in the past few years”, Rosenman said.

The solution, according to OCIOs, is to build up investment in alternative assets that boast a stronger return than public equities over time.

“There is a benefit of illiquidity premium that could be added to liquid investments,” said Bernard Reidy, national endowment and foundations executive at Bank of America, adding that returns on private markets could exceed public equities by 2 per cent to 3 per cent or more under leading managers.

The growing complexity of alternative investments, however, has created a high barrier to entry that small endowments and foundations struggle to overcome with their limited resources. That, said OCIO advocates, is where the model fits in.

Matt Bank, deputy chief investment officer of GEM, an OCIO in North Carolina that manages $12bn, said the company’s investment team of about 40 professionals focused on different segments of the public and private markets is a draw for clients.

“If you have a $500mn endowment, you simply cannot afford that level of team and staff,” Bank said. “It’s not cost effective.”

Many endowments and foundations are convinced. Patricia Langer, vice-president of administration and finance at Macalester College in Minnesota with a $902mn endowment, said it disbanded its internal investment team of four and started working with an OCIO last month in order to “gain access to higher earning (alternative asset) managers.” (The internal team was laid off).

“We reached a point where we needed to either invest in a bigger team, so that we could do more work to speak with more managers and knock on more doors, or consider the outsourcing option,” Langer said. “Our hope is that it’s easier to sustain a group of investment professionals in this OCIO model than it is to continue to expand and then continually refresh the existing staff.”

The use of OCIOs did pay off for some non-profit organisations. Stuart Comstock-Gay, president of the Delaware Community Foundation with $350mn investable assets, said he was “extremely happy” with what the OCIO his organisation hired seven years ago had achieved by investing in alternative assets ranging from commodities to real estate.

The foundation was “much more erratic in our returns” when it only held stocks and bonds, Comstock-Gay said. Now, its results are on par with peers, and sometimes even better, he added.

While some endowments and foundations have benefited from outsourcing their investment functions, others are waiting to see when and if the initiative bears fruit.

An OCIO performance index compiled by consultancy Alpha Capital Management shows the endowment and foundation sub index underperformed the S&P 500 index and a standard investment portfolio mix of 60 per cent US stocks and 40 per cent bonds in the decade through June this year.

“To say that OCIO is always more cost effective is just not right,” Simmons said.

HUNDREDS of households missing out on a winter fuel payment can apply for £200 to cover energy bills within weeks.

The help comes via the latest round of the Household Support Fund which is worth £421million.

The fund is designed to help hard-up households cover the cost of living, mostly through cash grants, supermarket and energy vouchers.

Each council across England has been allocated a share of the £421million pot and decides who to distribute money to.

North Devon Council has set aside £200,000 for pensioners receiving a council tax reduction but not pension credit.

The local authority said just under 1,000 pensioner households will receive £200 grants, the BBC reports.

Councillors in North Devon have expressed concern the roughly 1,000 who don’t qualify for pension credit could struggle to cover their energy bills this winter.

It comes after the Government changed the eligibility criteria for the winter fuel payment meaning only those on certain benefits, including pension credit, will receive the up to £300 payment.

We have asked North Devon Council how the £200 payments will be made, and when, and will update this story when we have heard back.

Eligible residents will be able to apply in the next few weeks via the council’s website.

What about if I don’t live in North Devon?

You should be able to get help via the Household Support Fund if you don’t live North Devon.

Each council across England has been allocated a share from the £421million pot.

But each local authority gets to decide its own eligibility criteria.

That means what you are entitled to will vary depending on where you live.

Not all councils have decided what they will do with their share of the £421million yet either.

The best thing to do is contact your local authority to see if any help is currently on offer.

You can find what council area you fall under by the using the Government’s council locator tool via gov.uk.

The Sun recently shared a guide and interactive map to help those unsure figure out what they may be able to claim.

Other help on offer

If you’re not eligible for the Household Support Fund, you might be able to get a grant from your energy firm to cover energy debt.

British Gas is handing out grants worth £1,700 to struggling households through its Individual and Families Fund.

The fund is available to British Gas and non-British Gas customers living in England, Scotland or Wales.

You won’t be eligible if you received a grant from the British Gas Energy Trust within the last two years.

And you must be seeking a grant to clear outstanding debt on a current or open gas, electricity or dual fuel energy account.

Crucially, you also need to have received help from a money advice agency within the last six months.

If you don’y qualify for help with British Gas, a number of other energy firms offer help to customers struggling with energy bill debt.

This includes OVO, Boost, E.On, E.On Next, EDF, Scottish Power, Octopus, Shell Energy, SSE and Utilita.

How has the Household Support Fund evolved?

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The Household Support Fund was first launched in October 2021 to help Brits pay their way through winter amid the cost of living crisis.

Councils up and down the country got a slice of the £421million funding available to dish out to Brits in need.

It was then extended in the 2022 Spring Budget and for a second time in October 2022 to help those on the lowest incomes with the rising cost of living.

The DWP then confirmed a third extension of the scheme through to March 31, 2024.

Former chancellor Jeremy Hunt extended the HSF for the fourth time while delivering his Spring Budget on March 6, 2024.

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In September 2024, the Government announced a fifth extension.

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How do you feel about lace curtains? A charming finishing touch that brings back fond memories of granny’s cottage? Or an age-old prop of the curtain-twitcher that should never haunt windows again? 

The textile designer Tori Murphy, who has launched a collection of British-made, vintage-inspired lace curtains, is hoping customers are persuadable to the former. Made in Nottingham, the home of the original lace-making industry, the designs are drawn from the archive of one of the city’s oldest manufacturers, which began making lace in the 1760s. “The laces in this new collection are made exactly the same way, on the same machines, with the same materials that would have been used 50, 100 and 150 years ago,” she says. “Extraordinary manufacturing capabilities still exist in this country, and we’re dedicated to preserving them.”

Murphy’s BB lace was deemed the best for protecting households from flying glass during the Blitz, able to catch fragments in its intricately designed weave

Murphy, who grew up between England and Ireland and is now based in Nottingham, is well aware that she has some prejudice to contend with. “Nets” have suffered a bad press over the years. While the original Nottingham lace was seen as a luxury, a status symbol made using state-of-the art British textile manufacturing, its desirability diminished as lace curtains grew in popularity and technology developed, with manufacturers turning to cheaper materials, including acrylic and nylon. Over-familiar and poor quality, lace curtains became associated with small-minded parochialism.

The term curtain-twitcher came into parlance in 1940, when lacy windows were widely visible across the British Isles. The Oxford English Dictionary attributes its first usage to Flann O’Brien, writing under the moniker Myles na gCopaleen, in a column for the Irish Times. But it was another Irish writer (under another pseudonym), Brinsley MacNamara, in 1918, who created the indelible image of nosy neighbours peering through curtains to cast judgment upon their townspeople, in his thinly-disguised village tell-all, The Valley of the Squinting Windows. 

Still in publication more than a century later, the cover of the 2018 edition of the book features a window with a lace half-curtain and a human silhouette, just visible — proof that those negative curtain-twitching associations still stand today, but also that its subject matter continues to make rivetingly good drama. Following what the neighbours are up to and judging them for it is, after all, the driving narrative of every soap opera ever made. Only last year, the trailer for Wicked Little Letters, starring Olivia Coleman and Jessie Buckley as neighbours-at-war, saw lace curtains used as a visual shorthand for the tale of prying and tittle-tattle that lies ahead.

But if there is a time for sheer curtains to shake off that frumpy image, it is surely now. After years dedicated to minimalism, we’re in softer and more decorative interior times and curtains have found themselves in favour again. Café curtains, usually made from sheer or demi-sheer linen, covering the lower half of windows, have been leading the way. Mary Walsh and Laragh Bohn, founders of bespoke curtain and blind-making service The London Curtain Girls, report a notable uptick in the style over the last couple of years, particularly for central London areas, such as Notting Hill, where houses directly front busy streets. 

“They’re an easy solution for privacy,” says Walsh. “Other options are shutters or full blinds, which block out a lot of light.” Lace, they believe, is the next step, particularly for the romantically inclined. “They’re definitely making a comeback and I think that’s because it’s all about memory and nostalgia,” says Bohn, “Using the kind of fabric you remember being used in your family. Lace always has a story — what it’s made of, where it’s made, who made it.”

A dramatic case in point is Murphy’s BB lace; the style was deemed the best for protecting households from flying glass and shrapnel during the Blitz, able to catch fragments in its intricately designed weave. Such heroic levels of practicality are surely a good reason to let go of lace’s negative associations.

But let’s not pretend the attributes that made lace curtains a popular option in the first place are not still attractive today. What is our preoccupation with social media if not 21st century curtain-twitching? A lace curtain allows you a certain amount of control over your privacy, while still being able to invade your neighbour’s. “You can tweak them so that people can see or not see what you want them to,” says Murphy. “You’re screened from the outside but you can still follow everything that’s happening beyond.” Sound familiar? Sound tempting? Maybe time, then, to give lace curtains another look.

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When Britain’s oldest private equity firm 3i purchased an obscure Dutch discount retailer early last decade, even those involved in the deal had little inkling it would become one of the most successful leveraged buyouts in history.

One former executive who worked on the 2011 takeover of Action, which sells cheap products from towels to toilet cleaner out of retail parks, remembers looking around its warehouses and seeing piles of “very dusty old stock”.

But the takeover of an unassuming chain of bargain stores has proved 3i’s redemption trade, rescuing a storied buyout firm from growing irrelevance after a painful restructuring and making eye-watering returns for its shareholders in the process.

The firm, which in recent years has added to the majority stake it bought in 2011 for £114mn, now values its investment in the retailer at almost £15bn.

Action has driven a more than 1,000 per cent rise in 3i’s shares as the retailer’s value has ballooned to account for 66 per cent of the firm’s portfolio by value, and has returned at least £2.9bn in cash to its controlling shareholder.

“It’s the gem in their portfolio,” said a former 3i partner.

However, not everyone thinks the rally is deserved. ShadowFall, the hedge fund that shorted the now-defunct fraudulent German fintech Wirecard, has built a multimillion-pound position against the firm because it believes its valuation of Action is too high.

The debate around Action’s valuation has underlined how 3i’s future, and that of its chief executive Simon Borrows, are intimately linked to the retailer’s success and raised questions over what the buyout firm might become — with or without its star asset.

“Shareholders are now essentially buying 3i as a proxy for Action,” said Haley Tam, senior equity research analyst at UBS.

3i declined to comment.

By the time Borrows was promoted from chief financial officer in 2012, the FTSE 100 company, which was founded in 1945 at the request of the UK government to support war-stricken businesses, had 124 investments in small to medium-sized companies and offices across the world.

“When I first joined, 3i was completing a transaction every working day of the year,” said the former executive, who joined the firm in the 1990s. “It was just an extraordinary volume machine.”

But Borrows, a former investment banker who advised on 3i’s initial public offering in 1994, whittled the group down, closing offices from Barcelona to Hong Kong, cutting more than a third of staff and restricting new deals to northern Europe and Brazil.

Within three years the number of companies in 3i’s portfolio had almost halved to 65, with some sold at a loss, while the group’s credit business was sold in 2016.

In 2015 Borrows put an end to third-party fundraising because the firm’s aim of investing in up to seven new targets a year left it with “no compulsion” to seek money from outside investors.

Meanwhile 3i had been growing Action, which had operated 250 stores across the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany when the group bought it. Sales at the retailer, which now operates more than 2,300 stores in 12 European countries, rose from €1.2bn to more than €11bn in the decade to March 2023. 

Action’s returns to the investment firm have largely been funded by the retailer taking on additional debt. The Financial Times reported this summer that 3i was set to receive another payout of at least €1.1bn as Action worked to raise new leveraged loans worth more than €2bn.

The buyout group recently increased its stake in the retailer from 55 per cent to 58 per cent.

Executives at 3i last year received £735mn in carried interest solely relating to the group’s investment in Action.

On top of carried interest, Borrows received more than £7.5mn in bonus and long-term incentives as well as a £700,000 salary for the financial year.

3i now values its stake in Action at £14.8bn.

But Matthew Earl, managing partner of ShadowFall, told the FT he believed the implied Action valuation of 18.5 times operating earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation was too high. He added the price of 3i’s shares implicitly attached an even higher multiple to the retailer.

Earl said he believed the retailer had benefited disproportionately from high inflation because it buys half its inventory months in advance — an advantage that would fade as price rises subsided.

He also questioned how much the chain could further expand in France, a “saturated market”.

Many remain bullish, and are not convinced by the thesis of ShadowFall’s short position. Clive Black, head of consumer research at Shore Capital, said Action was a “formidable business and it hasn’t gained the valuation it has through market manipulation, it has done it through exceptionally strong sequential growth”.

The discount chain may have benefited from “a short-term tailwind in [profit] margins from inflation”, Black added, but “it’s not just Action, inflation has been everywhere, Action used it well”.

Citi, which increased its price target for 3i days before ShadowFall’s position became public, subsequently argued that the valuation was “cheap when factoring in faster-than-peer growth” and that most of Action’s store growth was expected to be outside of France.

But regardless of Action’s valuation, the more important question for some is what 3i’s purpose is, whether it keeps or exits the asset.

Michael Sanderson, director in equity research at Barclays, said shareholders in 3i were “buying a business that is heavily exposed to Action’s development”, whereas 10 years ago it was “building value by . . . buying companies and growing them and selling them on after a short time period”.

He was positive about 3i and Action overall, but added there were “undoubted questions about what the long-term plan is, given [Action] is such a large part of 3i right now” and that the retailer had “got to such a scale now, there are very few options” for exiting it.

For the former 3i executive, the group’s non-Action portfolio “is now not of a scale that it probably survives on its own”. They added that 3i had “become a victim of Action’s success”.

The need to diversify appears not to be lost on 3i, whose executives have pointed to other portfolio companies that could be their next success story.

3i designated Royal Sanders, a European producer of personal care products, to its “longer-term” assets last year. It has also highlighted Netherlands-based bread and snack producer, the European Bakery Group, as a strong performer in recent years.

“A number of assets have the potential to become longer-term compounders like Action,” Borrows said in May.

“We’ve obviously learned the benefits of holding things for longer,” he said last month, adding that the group’s 2015 sale of global material-testing laboratory network Element had been too early because it had “continued to grow significantly” since.

The buyout group is also looking to make two or three investments a year in software and services companies, to add to an overall “non-Action portfolio” that it recently said had both strong and weak-performing assets.

Despite Action’s continued growth, the former 3i partner suggested the group would keep Action “as long as they can”, but questioned just “how much of the juice is left” in the retailer.

As for what the firm would be without Action, the person suggested 3i might regret selling the credit arm given the private debt market boom.

“Simon’s probably looking at Action as his swan song,” they said. “After that he goes off. There isn’t anything else.”

3i still manages third-party capital in its infrastructure strategy but the former executive said the decision to stop raising more third-party funds in private equity might also hinder its pursuit of the next Action.

“If you can’t raise third-party funds, it’s very difficult to be a private equity firm these days,” they said.

Borrows has, however, pointed to the lack of pressure to return cash to external investors as a strength that will allow 3i to hold portfolio companies for longer.

Some observers, though, do not hold much faith in it repeating its success with Action.

“Being the next Action is really, really hard,” said Sanderson at Barclays, adding that the prospect of another investment doing as well was “almost impossible”.

ANGRY neighbours say a derelict house on a town’s most “prestigious street” has been abandoned for 20 years – and left looking like a bombsite.

Residents have demanded a landlord sell the home in Swindon, Wiltshire, after it’s become a major eyesore.

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They are also calling for urgent repairs on the property and for it to be taken over by the council after complaints of inaction against the landlord.

One neighbour Chris Evans, 67, says the shuttered, graffitied and burnt building is a damning indictment on the town.

He wants something urgently done about the house under the council’s empty homes scheme after it has sat unoccupied for at least 20 years.

Chris said: “This is one of the most prestigious roads in Swindon and for the council to allow that to happen is pretty disgraceful.”

A view from a neighbouring house shows a large crater in the garden and first-floor doors opening into thin air.

The nearby property puts off potential tenants and Chris believes it is damaging his business.

Another nearby resident Agne said: “It has become some sort of like freakish attraction for people to have a laugh and point at.”

The house is not only said to be unsightly but also dangerous.

Agne has lived next door for 10 years and has seen squatters living there.

She said: “You don’t know if you are going to be attacked walking home.

“If that house goes on fire straight away it will spread into our house.

“This house needs to be knocked down. The council needs to get involved.”

Latest pictures show an empty former garage, a large hole that fills with water and smashed windows and internal brickwork left exposed.

The garden and house were left in this state after an extension was demolished.

The work also reportedly caused “awful smelling” raw sewage and gas to leak from the house.

Squatters, fires lit, drug dens and vandalism have all been reported – which have left their visible marks on the house.

The chief executive of the council Samantha Mowbray has admitted that Swindon Borough Council does not have enough money to do the work itself.

The owner was contacted but refused to comment.

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