Overseas arm of Saudi Dar Al Arkan has launches in Oman, Spain – and an IPO in London
Manoj Nair, Business Editor
Dubai: Ziad El Chaar should be clocking a lot of air miles these days. The CEO of DarGlobal needs to as the international arm of the Saudi mega-developer Dar Al Arkan has multiple projects running across countries and continents.
Plus, of course, prepare for a listing on London Stock Exchange at some point before March 31. All of which means El Chaar is a constant presence in fancy airport lounges and on flights within the Gulf and beyond. Not that he is complaining a bit about the travel.
In an interview, El Chaar gives a broad outline on the medium-term plans for DarGlobal.
Has the name change to DarGlobal already happened (from Dar Al Arkan Real Estate Development, which is the name of the Dubai-based entity)?
DarGlobal is being consolidated as a holding company (for all international operations) in the UK in preparation for the listing on London Stock Exchange. DarGlobal will be the UK holding company of the group’s international property development interests and marketing offices in the UK, Spain, UAE, Oman, Qatar, Bosnia and China.
All your eye-catching in recent times – whether it’s in Dubai, Qatar or Oman – have been outside of Saudi Arabia. Is that something you’re doing on purpose?
We need to differentiate between the two companies. Dar Al Arkan Development, a 28-year old company, is among the biggest developers specialized in the Saudi Arabia market, and has delivered more than 15,000 residential units and 500,000 square meter of commercial space. And continues to have a very big pipeline of developments in Saudi Arabia.
The main reason you don’t hear the news of the Saudi Arabian company is because the product is 100 per cent designed for Saudi Arabia, and we do not announce outside Saudi Arabia. All the announcements happened inside Saudi Arabia. And Dar Al Arkan is working with the newly established governmental companies like Roshn on the development of some of their mega masterplans.
Do you hear some of your bankers hinting that DarGlobal is overstretched with its roster of projects – the ones in the Gulf, London, Bosnia and elsewhere?
You can always say that we have taken Dar Al Arkan Saudi Arabia and stretched it to all of these areas. But that is not what happened. For the last four years, we have invested in establishing a totally new company, with new staff and a very strong and experienced management team to do the expansion out of Saudi Arabia under DarGlobal.
The full management team of DarGlobal is totally independent of the management team that sits in Saudi Arabia. We did not stretch the existing company in Saudi Arabia and this is what people see, especially the bankers, because we are in the middle of a presentation to potential investors for our announced IPO.