All residents and employees covered under Monaco’s health care system are now able to access their free flu shots from pharmacies in the Principality.
In a statement released Friday 22nd October, the government said that all employees insured with social security from the Monaco Social Funds and the State Medical Benefits Services (SPME) and their beneficiaries can now obtain influenza vaccines in pharmacies in the Principality, with or without a medical prescription.
People just need to present their health card to access the flu vaccine, which can then be administered by a doctor, a private nurse, a pharmacist or a medical biologist from the Principality.
The vaccine will be fully reimbursed by the patient’s social security fund.
“The objective of the Monegasque health authorities is to get as many people as possible to be vaccinated and therefore to do everything possible to limit as much as possible the combined effects of the two viruses which could circulate at the same time,” said the government.
Seasonal flu and Covid, although caused by very different viruses, have identical symptoms: fever, cough, fatigue, muscle pain, etc. Diagnosis is therefore easier if an infected person is vaccinated against the flu, as caregivers can more quickly identify a possible Covid case and offer appropriate treatment, whether at home or in hospital.
People with flu shots are also less likely to need hospitalisation, therefore freeing up healthcare facilities for severe Covid cases.
The Principality has officially welcomed four new ambassadors from Algeria, Namibia, Korea and Burundi.
Minister of External Relations and Cooperation Laurent Anselmi met with the Principality’s four newest ambassadors on Thursday 21st October to welcome them with a luncheon at the Hermitage Hotel after presenting their Letters of Credence to Prince Albert II that morning.
Mohamed Antar Daoud began his career as a journalist on Algerian television before joining the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1980 as Deputy Director of Press and Information. His career in diplomacy then took him to various Embassies including Washington D.C., Nouakchott, Rabat and Lille. Chargé de mission to the Head of Government from 2004 to 2010, he was also Ambassador of Algeria to Mali, Gabon and Equatorial Guinea.
Albertus Aochamub spent much of his career in telecoms, banking and television before being appointed Press Secretary to the President in 2015. Ambassador of Namibia to France since 2018, he is also a member of the executive council of UNESCO.
Dae-jong Yoo joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Korea in 1988 and has increased the number of posts in several directorates. Director of Human Resources from 2003-2004 and of the United Nations from 2007-2008, he was subsequently Minister-Counsellor at the Permanent Mission of the Republic of Korea to International Organisations in Vienna, then Director General of International Organisations. Appointed Ambassador to Serbia in 2016, he also recently served as Deputy Minister of Planning and Coordination at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Korea.
With a BA in African Languages and Literature, Ernest Niyokindi was a teacher before embarking on a career in diplomacy. First as Counsellor and then Charge d’Affaires at the Embassy of Burundi in Tanzania, he was subsequently posted to the Embassy of Burundi in Russia. Since 2019, he has been the Ambassador of Burundi in France.
Photo from left to right: Albertus Aochamub, Mohamed Antar Daoud, Laurent Anselmi, Ernest Niyokindi, and Dae-jong Yoo, by Communication Department / Michael Alesi
Young racers sought for new E-Karting Championship
Formula 1 hotshot Charles Leclerc is backing fellow Monegasque racer Clivio Piccione in a new eco-friendly electric karting championship for up-and-coming racing talent.
The Monaco eKart Championship has gone from concept to reality as fast as a Ferrari goes from zero to 60.
Former race car driver Clivio Piccione, who has run an electric kart track in Monaco for the past decade, along with his collaborators, had a vision of widening the scope and visibility of the all-electric kart to a larger audience and to inspire new talent.
The idea combines a competition aspect with social education via the environmental aspect. This race would be the first 100% electric kart championship ever to be held and could pave the way for bigger interlinked events. It is planned to launch in Monaco by August 2022.
The competition is not gender-specific and the focus is on the racers, not the equipment, allowing talented drivers from all income ranges to participate equally with the same karts provided by the event.
The partnership with Charles Leclerc came about through the Ferrari driver’s love of karting. He started his career in this milieu and still finds great pleasure in participating. Piccione says the link to both the Principality and to the sport is an important one, commenting to Monaco Matin, “We want to play the Monaco card 100% with this partnership with Charles Leclerc. This brand will ensure the entire championship with the same engines, settings and tires for all competitors.”
The races will be held in four categories, starting with EK4 Baby aimed at budding racers aged five to seven in 4kw karts. Next up will be the seven to 11-year-olds in the EK3 Mini/Cadet class racing in 7kw karts, followed by the EK2 Junior’s aged 11 to 14 in 18kw karts. Finally, there is the 25kw kart racers, the over 14’s, in the EK1 Senior class.
Naturally, great racing and learning how to be a gracious competitor are a huge part of the concept, but equally so is the educational aspect with regard to the ecological impact, in line with the philosophy of the Principality.
“We want to train and educate young people in the practice of electric karting in relation to this new mode of consumption. We want to establish these strong values of daily life,” said Piccione.
There are six championship races scheduled for 2022. Three will be in the Principality, one in Menton, one in Nice, one in Menton, aand one in Italy.
Race organisers will be talent scouting in all categories, save the EK4’s, starting next month and one lucky driver will be given total financial aid.
Winners of the championship will be given sponsorship for the following season, adding an extra sweetener to the pot.
In total, €147,000 will be up for grabs for three winners.
Photo by Julien Pradas / JP Photography
AS Monaco snatch late victory in Europa League classic
AS Monaco grabbed an unlikely victory in dramatic circumstances against PSV Eindhoven, thanks to a last-gasp winner. Having survived a second-half PSV onslaught at the Philips Stadion, Sofianne Diop was perfectly placed to slot home the winner with only minutes remaining, and secure a valuable three points.
The tie started slowly with neither side capable of mustering even a half-chance. That changed on the 20-minute mark when Ciao Henrique, in a seemingly innocuous position, picked up the ball and floated a perfectly-weighted, defence-splitting ball towards Boadu. The former Eredivisie striker Boadu, without needing to break stride or take a touch, expertly slotted the ball through Drommel’s legs to open the scoring.
AS Monaco proceeded to dominate the remainder of the half, and would have been disappointed not to have gone into half-time further ahead. Boadu, having already opened his account for the night, twice dithered on the ball, allowing defenders to get back and make goal-saving challenges when he had been played through on goal.
A reinvigorated PSV, unrecognisable to the side that had been so passive in the first-half, sought to make ASM rue their missed chances early in the second. Nübel was forced into a string of fine saves early on, the most notable of which coming from a fierce Vinicius strike, which seemed destined for the bottom corner.
The warning signs were not heeded, and PSV’s incessant pressure paid off in the 59th minute – Gakpo rifling in a long-distance strike that seemingly beat Nübel for pace to level the score.
PSV, not satisfied with the point, continued their bombardment of the ASM goal, and should have converted one of their high-quality chances. The most gilt-edged chance fell to the substitute Vertessen, who blazed high and wide when unpressured only a few yards out.
Going into the closing stages, ASM would have been happy to share the points, having been under the cosh for the entire second-half. It was however ASM, who secured an unlikely victory, against the run of play. Ciao Henrique was once again the provider, flashing a ball across the face of goal for Diop to tuck-in and take all 3 points.
The 2-1 win in Eindhoven is enough to keep Nico Kovac’s top of their Europa League group, and firmly on course for qualification for the group stages.
Post-match, Nico Kovac admitted that he thought his side were lucky to come away with the win. “In the second-half, we had more problems because we didn’t play the way we had in the first-half, we were too passive and that is why we were under pressure… we are a bit lucky to win this match, but to be honest, I’ll happily take the 3 points.”
ASM have a tight turnaround, as they host Montpellier on Sunday afternoon.
Formula 1’s ‘digital first’ strategy has successfully driven up the popularity of the sport, engaging a new generation of racing fans and pulling in more female supporters.
Formula 1, Neilson Sports and Motorsport Network came together for the mother of all fan reviews, revealing the results of the Motorsport Network F1 Global Fan Survey on Thursday 21st October.
Conducted in 15 languages across the motorsport.com platform, they got an incredible 167,000 replies from fans, the largest response known to date.
The survey disclosed that Formula 1 is considered “the pinnacle of motorsport” by fans globally. The sport is also seeing a more diverse and developing fan base since the last survey in 2017. This year’s review saw the youngest average age ever, 32-years-old, down four years from the former study.
The ladies also had a bigger presence, nearly doubling their participation to 18.3%, up from 10% in 2017, and student responses increased to 26%, up from 18% in the last survey.
Fan favourites in terms of locales are Monaco, Monza, Spa, and Silverstone.
“The results show that F1 is in excellent health, certainly the best I have known it in my 30-year career in the sport,” said the President of Motorsport Network James Allen. “F1 struggled in the past to attract younger fans and particularly the female fan base and this survey speaks volumes about how the new management’s digital first approach and the funnel effect of projects like Netflix ‘Drive to Survive’ are engaging a new generation of passionate F1 fans. Thanks to the internet and social media, anyone anywhere today can become a fan.”
The sport is attracting more interest from the US, India, China and Mexico than five years ago, while McLaren has experienced a renaissance and is now the most popular team, followed by Red Bull, Ferrari, and Mercedes. Max Verstappen is the overall most popular driver. Lando Norris is second most popular and highest-ranked amongst women. Lewis Hamilton rounds out the top three and is unsurprisingly the highest-ranked in his native United Kingdom.
Fans also said the sport was exciting, competitive, entertaining, expensive and technological. This is the first time that competitive and entertaining have appeared in the top five adjectives used to describe F1, and more than two-thirds of those asked think F1 exceeds expectations with regard to “pioneering technology”.
Fans, 55% of them, believe F1 should take the lead in pursuing the development of sustainable fuel sources as a matter of course. Two-thirds were aware of F1’s plans to introduce 100% sustainable fuels by 2025.
Photo of the Spanish Grand Prix 2021 credit: Scuderia Ferrari Press Office
Profile: Boutique brokerage Cecil Wright and Partners
It was a hectic time in the lead up to the Monaco Yacht Show for the Cecil Wright and Partners team, not because they were unprepared, but because two of the three yachts they were exhibiting were under contract to be sold a day before the show opened. Not bad for a boutique company with a handful of senior sales brokers.
It is onboard the 50m Feadship Hanikon that I meet Henry Smith, a Partner and Director of Cecil Wright and Partners, a boutique yacht brokerage with offices in Monaco, London and Jersey. This is Henry’s eighth Monaco Yacht Show, and we were supposed to meet onboard La Masquerade. But that 55-metre Amels, along with the 49.70 metre Feadship Herculina, were both under contract to be sold, leaving Cecil Wright with three expensive berth positions, and only one saleable yacht to exhibit. Monaco Life: Can you give us the back story of Cecil Wright and Partners?
Henry Smith: Chris Cecil-Wright and I were working together at a larger Monaco based brokerage and we studied how the market was developing and thought ‘there’s just too much out there to know everything’. Chris has been in the industry for 30 years now, and back in the day it was possible to know every big yacht owner and every big yacht, therefore you could be an authority on everything. But as time has gone by, there are so many more yachts and so many different owners, there’s just no way of knowing everything. So, our principal idea was: why don’t we specialise and focus on a very specific area of the market and ace it? So, that’s what we are doing, and doing it very well. Madam Gu What area of the market are you focussing on?
Northern European pedigree motor yachts, specifically Feadship. We’ve built, bought and sold more Feadships than anyone else. It’s quite extraordinary. Our 10-year plan was to be recognised as the authority on Feadship, and within three years we already had our first cold-call from a client saying he had heard we were the Feadship guys, so could we sell his Feadship? We subsequently sold the 60.55m Kingdome Come within four months.
Over the past few years, the largest Feadship sale in almost every year has involved Cecil Wright and Partners. We’ve also built some very sizeable yachts and have several more large new builds on the cards now with Feadship. Chris built Madame Gu, which everyone in Monaco would recognise – the iconic 99m Feadship which, at the time of delivery, was the largest yacht ever launched in Holland; Tango; Hampshire IIwhich you see here a lot on Quay Kennedy, Sherpa, … the list goes on and on. Why Feadship?
As a business, we focus on the 50m-plus Northern European market because that is where we know we can add the most value. And we have chosen to be known as the Feadship specialists for several reasons, one of which is that the quality is unsurpassed with unrivalled craftsmanship and attention to detail. This expertise is born from years of understanding of what makes a great boat.
Another reason is that the whole working process with Feadship is quite unique compared to other shipyards. It’s an effortless relationship because of the long-standing relationships we have with all the key people there, from the CEO to the carpenters. Furthermore, a crucial reason is, we always know a client will be blown away by the final build, so that’s great for client retention and our reputation.
The ethos of a Feadship owner is also quite different. Instead of thinking: ‘’How big a yacht can I get for as little money as possible?’’, they recognise that it is the quality that you are paying for and there really is a discernible difference in what yards can and do deliver.
Dutch boats have a timeless quality which is reflected in their market value, and the secondary market is historically strong for Feadship. Their yachts not only change hands for closer to the asking price, but they also move far quicker.
A key ethos that we stand by at Cecil Wright and Partners is ‘fewer clients serviced better’, and this underpins why we work with Feadship. What have you noticed about the industry in the last 18 months of the health crisis?
People who were sitting on the fence about a purchase are now no longer sitting on the fence; they are very much jumping off it! And it is not just people who were thinking about buying, it is people who were thinking about doing longer-term charters who have said “Actually, I’m going to move into yacht ownership now”.
There is one school of thought which suggests that unless you can commit a considerable amount of time to a yacht, there’s not a huge point in buying one because there are a lot of costs and input required to ownership, and if you are only on it for one week a year, then it makes sense to charter one. You can, of course, hope to cover some of the running cost by making the yacht commercial and allowing charters to take place.
That said, some people don’t like the idea of other people using their yacht, so that is obviously a different case and tends to be at the larger end of the global fleet where the yachts are run privately.
We have noticed an ongoing trend in the market which we refer to as the ‘flight to quality’. This has been somewhat amplified by the last 18 months and, as a result, there really is very little left in the pedigree market.
Markets are cyclical and yachting is no exception. I would, however, expect the value retention of pedigree yachts to remain strong given the surge in demand for yachts in general. Hanikon How have you found this year’s Monaco Yacht Show, including the new format?
The show was a resounding success. Had you asked me what was going to happen a few months ago, I was very unsure as to whether it was even going to take place. There was a good turnout of qualified buyers who actively wanted to buy yachts.
I would say that the quality and the number of yachts on show wasn’t as high as most years, but this is really down to the fact that the market has heated up so much that all the top pedigree inventory has been sold!
In terms of the new format, I thought it was an interesting idea to have a VIP-only day on the Wednesday, but frankly it should really be like this on at least three of the four days. In terms of organisation behind-the-scenes, it turned into a far more efficient process which we are all grateful for. Where do you see the future of the luxury yachting industry?
As global wealth increases, I can only see yachting as a sector becoming more and more popular. Whilst we will definitely see the motor yacht market expand, we are also going to see a resurgence of demand for sailing yachts, and this is driven by an ever-decreasing average age of yacht buyers who are more environmentally conscious and sailing yachts are deemed to be far greener than their motor yacht counterparts.
Already, the brokerage market has largely sold out of pedigree sailing yacht stock and we are increasingly having to hunt in the off market. Thankfully, we have a lot of experience in this space and when we approach owners in the off market, our name already carries some significant clout, so we are taken seriously. In the last 12 months, 30% of global pedigree sailing yacht deals over 35m have involved Cecil Wright and Partners.
The ever-decreasing age of yacht buyers means the yacht owning tenure for the average owner is going to increase. This will make things pretty interesting for the market as a whole unless the yards can up production to match this ever-growing demand. Where do you see the future of Cecil Wright and Partners?
We have no intention of turning into a massive brokerage, our sales count in terms of our market area is better than most of our competitors. Between Chris, Matt (Matthew Ruane), and myself, we’re doing more sales per broker than pretty much any other brokerage – five deals this month alone, and all pedigree yachts in the right space.
So where do we go from here? We are not going to grow into a big brokerage as I said because we don’t want the overheads or the headache. We are currently 14 people located between here in Monaco, London and Jersey. Our client base is broadly European, North American, and some Middle Eastern. We may recruit one or two more people globally, but we are where we need to be, specifically within Monaco, right in the middle of the action in Monte-Carlo. Cecil Wright and Partners is continuing to go from strength to strength, selling, chartering and building more and more Feadships and pedigree yachts.
What I would really like to see is more people coming to us for our expertise in the area, even if it just for an honest second opinion. As I mentioned earlier, our 10-year plan was to be known as the Feadship experts, and it’s certainly shaping up that way.
Top photo of Henry Smith, Partner and Director of Cecil Wright and Partners, all photos supplied
All the headlines and highlights from Monaco, direct to you every morning
