Majid Al Futtaim Holding has spun off its Syrian and Iranian units to its owner to head off concerns about exposure to sanctions as it adds 4,000 jobs throughout the Middle East.
The Dubai-based family business, which operates Mall of the Emirates and is the owner of the regional franchise rights to Carrefour supermarkets, made the move "proactively" to ease bond and sukuk investor concerns as the company geared up to roll out new malls across the Middle East.
The Syrian and Iranian units are now owned directly by the company founder Majid Al Futtaim.
MAF Holding yesterday reported a 10 per cent rise in annual revenues to Dh21.6bn (US$5.88bn) compared with 2011 and is planning future expansion.
MAF Holding's growth comes as the UAE economy - and Dubai in particular - experiences a rebound from the malaise of the past few years, with increased tourist arrivals swelling till receipts for retailers and other mall owners such as Emaar. It is also enjoying a return to growth in Bahrain and Egypt, where it is due to commence construction next month on the Mall of Egypt. MAF Holding will sign a $450 million loan agreement next month for a syndicate led by National Bank of Egypt and Banque Misr to finance the mall's construction, said Iyad Malas, MAF Holding's chief executive.
Mall openings in Egypt, Lebanon and a move into Central Asia, starting in Georgia are projected to require an additional 4,000 new staff hires for the firm.
But to continue tapping bond markets, the company has sought to minimise any risk of sanctions on Iran and Syria hampering investor willingness to support its growth plans.
"We have been compliant with all the sanctions all along," said Mr Malas. "We decided in light of our access to the bond market that it was probably a safer idea… so that some investors would not then preclude themselves from investing."
The Iran business, a joint venture with Carrefour consisting of hypermarkets selling local produce, has been sold to Mr Al Futtaim and the French retailer for an undisclosed cash sum. Mr Al Futtaim is the sole shareholder of MAF Holding.
MAF Holding also spun off its Syrian arm to Mr Al Futtaim in August.
"The company is no longer involved in Syria," said Mr Malas.
A year earlier - and after the country's civil war had started - MAF Holding announced that it had begun construction of $1bn mixed-use development west of Damascus.
MAF Holding generated earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation (Ebitda) of Dh3 billion during 2012, an increase of 7 per cent compared with the same period last year.
Stripping out a sharp devaluation in the Iranian rial, the growth rate would have been 9 per cent, said the company.
The devaluation of the Iranian currency this year as a result of United States and European Union sanctions against the country's central bank caused MAF's revenues generated in Iran to shrink to 4 per cent of the total last year from 8 per cent a year earlier, although the business has grown in real terms.
Fear of exposure to sanctions "has not posed any concern to any investors" at this time, said Mr Malas.
In February, MAF Holding launched a $400m sukuk, becoming one of the first family-owned businesses in the region to sell Islamic bonds. It followed with a $500m bond sale in July.
ghunter@thenational.ae
Who has been sanctioned?
Daniella Weiss and Nachala
Described as 'the grandmother of the settler movement', she has encouraged the expansion of settlements for decades. The 79 year old leads radical settler movement Nachala, whose aim is for Israel to annex Gaza and the occupied West Bank, where it helps settlers built outposts.
Harel Libi & Libi Construction and Infrastructure
Libi has been involved in threatening and perpetuating acts of aggression and violence against Palestinians. His firm has provided logistical and financial support for the establishment of illegal outposts.
Zohar Sabah
Runs a settler outpost named Zohar’s Farm and has previously faced charges of violence against Palestinians. He was indicted by Israel’s State Attorney’s Office in September for allegedly participating in a violent attack against Palestinians and activists in the West Bank village of Muarrajat.
Coco’s Farm and Neria’s Farm
These are illegal outposts in the West Bank, which are at the vanguard of the settler movement. According to the UK, they are associated with people who have been involved in enabling, inciting, promoting or providing support for activities that amount to “serious abuse”.
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
Six large-scale objects on show
- Concrete wall and windows from the now demolished Robin Hood Gardens housing estate in Poplar
- The 17th Century Agra Colonnade, from the bathhouse of the fort of Agra in India
- A stagecloth for The Ballet Russes that is 10m high – the largest Picasso in the world
- Frank Lloyd Wright’s 1930s Kaufmann Office
- A full-scale Frankfurt Kitchen designed by Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky, which transformed kitchen design in the 20th century
- Torrijos Palace dome
Sole survivors
- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
- Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
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