Noon.com, a US$1 billion e-commerce platform founded by the Emaar Properties chairman Mohamed Alabbar, said that it has appointed the co-founder of online fashion retailer Namshi.com as its new chief executive ahead of the venture's delayed launch this year.
Faraz Khalid, the co-founder and former managing director of Namshi will steer the company through its launch. The company, which had planned to launch in January, did not give further details about when its platform would go live in the UAE.
Noon is a joint venture project between Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund and a number of prominent Gulf investors.
"We are on track to launch Noon this year with the final work on the fulfilment infrastructure and payment systems being completed," said Mr Alabbar.
"Several of the region’s leading brand owners and suppliers have come on board, underlining our local strength."
Mr Khalid, who earned an MBA from the Wharton School, has been mandated with establishing long-term strategic partnerships, boosting the company's infrastructure, especially in Saudi Arabia, and building its technological platform.
"Faraz has built a successful e-commerce business in the region, and brings the right domain experience and market knowledge to his role as Noon’s chief executive officer," said Mr Alabbar. "We are confident that along with the team at Noon, Faraz will deliver an e-commerce platform like no other in the region.”
Noon announced last November that it had a warehouse the size of 60 football pitches in Dubai and a head office in Riyadh. Noon.com, which lost its former chief executive Fodhil Benturquia in April, had planned to launch with 20 million products on its platform.
"Noon presents the opportunity to create a dynamic e-commerce platform for, by and in the region," Mr Khalid said.
"With our local market knowledge and presence, and our focus on product authenticity, supplier value creation, superior logistics, professional service and competitive pricing, we aim to bring a transformational e-commerce experience to the Middle East.”
Mr Khalid's appointment follows recent departures from Noon.com
Omar Kassim, the founder of JadoPado, resigned from his post of chief technology officer at Noon.com in May only weeks after the company acquired the online marketplace.
The creation of Noon comes amid a flourishing of e-commerce businesses in the region, especially after Amazon purchased the Dubai-based online retailer Souq.com for US$650 million.
The e-commerce sector has been rapidly growing in the UAE thanks to the country's affluent and digitally savvy population as well as the adoption of technology. Mergers and acquisitions in the industry have picked up pace over the past year.
There is also a notable push by a number of home-grown brands to go beyond brick and mortar operations that have traditionally defined the retail landscape, with a pivot to develop the online shopping industry and directly challenge Amazon. And it is not just Noon that is stepping to the plate.
According to Magnitt, an online start-up community platform, e-commerce took the lion's share of deals to invest in start-ups in the first half at 16 per cent, followed by technology at 13 per cent and Fintech at 10 per cent.
Overall, the number of start-up funding deals in the UAE surged in the first half of the year following Amazon's acquisition of Souq.com and a $150m investment in the ride-hailing service Careem.
Ronaldo Mouchawar, the co-founder and chief executive of Souq.com, said this month that the deal, announced in March, had been formally concluded with work on integration under way. Currently, Souq offers more than 8.4 million products across 31 categories, however Amazon offers 480 million products worldwide.
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What should do investors do now?
What does the S&P 500's new all-time high mean for the average investor?
Should I be euphoric?
No. It's fine to be pleased about hearty returns on your investments. But it's not a good idea to tie your emotions closely to the ups and downs of the stock market. You'll get tired fast. This market moment comes on the heels of last year's nosedive. And it's not the first or last time the stock market will make a dramatic move.
So what happened?
It's more about what happened last year. Many of the concerns that triggered that plunge towards the end of last have largely been quelled. The US and China are slowly moving toward a trade agreement. The Federal Reserve has indicated it likely will not raise rates at all in 2019 after seven recent increases. And those changes, along with some strong earnings reports and broader healthy economic indicators, have fueled some optimism in stock markets.
"The panic in the fourth quarter was based mostly on fears," says Brent Schutte, chief investment strategist for Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Company. "The fundamentals have mostly held up, while the fears have gone away and the fears were based mostly on emotion."
Should I buy? Should I sell?
Maybe. It depends on what your long-term investment plan is. The best advice is usually the same no matter the day — determine your financial goals, make a plan to reach them and stick to it.
"I would encourage (investors) not to overreact to highs, just as I would encourage them not to overreact to the lows of December," Mr Schutte says.
All the same, there are some situations in which you should consider taking action. If you think you can't live through another low like last year, the time to get out is now. If the balance of assets in your portfolio is out of whack thanks to the rise of the stock market, make adjustments. And if you need your money in the next five to 10 years, it shouldn't be in stocks anyhow. But for most people, it's also a good time to just leave things be.
Resist the urge to abandon the diversification of your portfolio, Mr Schutte cautions. It may be tempting to shed other investments that aren't performing as well, such as some international stocks, but diversification is designed to help steady your performance over time.
Will the rally last?
No one knows for sure. But David Bailin, chief investment officer at Citi Private Bank, expects the US market could move up 5 per cent to 7 per cent more over the next nine to 12 months, provided the Fed doesn't raise rates and earnings growth exceeds current expectations. We are in a late cycle market, a period when US equities have historically done very well, but volatility also rises, he says.
"This phase can last six months to several years, but it's important clients remain invested and not try to prematurely position for a contraction of the market," Mr Bailin says. "Doing so would risk missing out on important portfolio returns."
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