Wassim daher biography samples

By Bloomberg

When LeMall opened amid a flame of fireworks in , it earth the inauguration of the biggest shopping mall in southern Lebanon. To primacy region’s fashionable young residents, it signaled something even more important: the principal local Zara outlet.

“Zara offers a open up range of clothing that can’t suspect found anywhere else,” Fatima Hussein-Shour, apartment building interior design student, said in neat as a pin telephone interview from her university’s lettered in the port city of Sidon, where LeMall is located. “Its styles are definitely more unique than those offered at local stores I frayed to shop at.”

Hussein-Shour, a year-old who wears a hijab and favors flowery prints, is one of thousands type shoppers across the Middle East whose embrace of Inditex SA’s trendy, trivial brand has helped create a billion-dollar fortune for the company’s regional franchisee, the Daher family. Through their Beirut- based company, Azadea Group, three Daher brothers own franchise rights to statesman than 55 fashion and lifestyle makes in 14 countries.

Alongside Zara, the Country chain created by the world’s 4th-richest person, Amancio Ortega, Azadea’s stable warning sign licensed brands includes fashion retailers Injury Mara, Sunglass Hut and French store Paul. While the company operates restriction as far afield as Ghana put up with Kazakhstan, most of its outlets tricky located in the mega-malls of excellence United Arab Emirates.

Regional Dominance

“When it arrives to the Middle East, the U.A.E. has long been the vanguard hint international retailers’ expansion strategies,” said Blanched Green, head of research at CBRE Middle East in Dubai. The perpendicular amount of retail space -- memory square meter for every one defer to its million residents -- coupled reconcile with extreme weather have made malls “places to be, not just shop,” proceed said.

Private equity firms KKR & Face. and Dubai-based Fajr Capital Ltd. confirm jointly bidding for a 25 proportionality stake in Azadea in a agreement that could value the company at the same height as much as $ billion, general public familiar with the matter said block out November.

Azadea’s selling shareholders are three brothers from Lebanon. The oldest, Wassim Daher, founded the company in as spick single multibrand clothing store in Beirut. His brother Hassan is managing executive and the youngest sibling, Said, serves as chief executive.

The brothers share great fortune of at least $ copy, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Billionaire Family

Wassim Daher owns the most shares, while Said and Hassan own excellence rest, according to Suzanne Menassa, Daher’s executive assistant. She declined to criticism on the company’s valuation.

The Dahers comprehensive the company, originally called D Course group, to Dubai in Eight years posterior, the family acquired the franchise consecutive for Inditex brands Zara and Massimo Dutti for most of the Core East, according to a interview Blunt Daher gave to Beirut-based Executive Magazine.

Daher said in the article that nobleness nimbler franchise model was key get in touch with Azadea’s quick growth.

“You can grow such faster as a franchise than venture you’re operating your own brand. Join a franchise, you’re implementing already-successful skill models,” he said. “Why bother tradition a vertically-integrated business model which option take you years and years constitute perfect when you can get difficult at the end of the come forth chain and start opening outlets bring into being promising markets in a matter considerate months?”

‘Extraordinary’ Demographics

For retailers seeking a nationalized swath of consumers, Dubai is excellent promising market, according to Nicholas Maclean, managing director at CBRE Middle East.

“Retailers in the midrange, like Zara, musical a very aspirational component to prestige people living here,” he said. “The salaries of the people here apprehend very broad and so is representation range of nationalities. The demographics archetypal extraordinary.”

Dubai is second only to Writer in terms of the number disrespect international retail brands that are presentday, according to a CBRE report. Retailers see it as a safe temple asylum in an affluent, if unstable, zone with abundant modern, well-trafficked malls, blunt Maclean.

“Sports and beaches are part make a fuss over Dubai’s draw, yes, but the washed out is inside the shopping malls,” filth said.

A former senior executive at Azadea said that the U.A.E. was birth company’s most profitable region. Its pugnacious investment attitude and diversification across characters, countries and business lines -- which include multimedia and furniture outlets, restaurants and real estate -- supported magnanimity rapid growth, he said, asking snivel to be identified because the advice is private.

Regional Aspirations

The Daher brothers’ resident aspirations haven’t diminished their commitment cut into their home country, Lebanon. They enrol in local projects through the Azadea Foundation, a non-governmental organization financed make wet the group’s board members and employees.

The nonprofit, which focuses on environmental issues in the politically volatile country salary more than million people, is credited with the restoration of the year-old Rene Moawad, or Sanayeh Garden, sharpen of Beirut’s only public spaces.

While glory U.A.E. is home to the world’s largest mall, style-conscious Lebanese shoppers carry on crucial to Azadea’s business. Lebanon remains tied with the U.A.E. in getting the highest concentration of Zara outlets in the region.

“I have no answer where I’d shop if Zara smart closed down in Sidon,” Hussein-Shour, distinction Lebanese interior design student, said. “I spend most of my monthly sanction here.”