Retail conglomerate LuLu is a large 30,000-employee empire spread into various other business sectors such as manufacturing, food processing, commodities trading, import, export and distribution, mall construction and management, as well as money services. The group’s annual revenue is touching $5bn and its founder Yusuff Ali MA has become the fourth richest Indian in the Middle East at a net worth of $2.2bn.
By Arno Maierbrugger/Gulf Times Correspondent/Bangkok
UAE-based retail conglomerate LuLu Group, which is currently on a massive expansion spree in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, is looking to expand to Southeast Asia this year by opening hypermarkets in Malaysia and Indonesia and money exchanges in countries like Thailand and Vietnam after it opened its first liaison office in the Philippines this year. Hong Kong is also on the radar, company executives said.
LuLu Group’s intention to expand to Malaysia through its retail unit was announced as early as in April 2014, when the company’s managing director Yusuff Ali MA said he plans to open the first Malaysian hypermarket “later in 2014.” However, the group instead intensified its expansion in the GCC with new stores in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Qatar and postponed the foray into Southeast Asia.
The first LuLu Hypermarket in Malaysia is now expected to be opened by the third quarter of 2015 at the earliest, followed by five others later. All will be halal-only hypermarkets, a novelty for Malaysia. The stores there will provide direct jobs for 2,500 Malaysians and indirect employment to 5,000, Yusuff Ali said. In a next move, LuLu Group is eyeing to open hypermarkets in Indonesia as part of its $500mn expansion strategy in Asia. In Indonesia, the group aims at opening two hypermarkets initially and later expand further.
To capitalise on remittance flows between the Middle East and East Asia, LuLu is now also expanding with its brand LuLu Exchange, the money exchange and remittance services unit of the LuLu Group established in 2008. Last year, the group launched its operations in the Philippines under the name LuLu Phils Inc headquartered in Makati, Manila, and plans to add three branches to its network in the country. Remittance activity from the Middle East to the Philippines through overseas Filipino workers is the world’s second strongest behind the Middle East-India corridor.
Other Southeast Asian destinations on LuLu Exchange’s radar are Thailand and Vietnam, and with its plans to enter Hong Kong in the future it shows that it also wants to tap the remittance corridors of Chinese overseas workers.
The new branches will also benefit expat workers in other GCC countries. LuLu Exchange currently has 75 outlets in five of the six GCC countries (not in Saudi Arabia where it has not been granted a licence), and it plans to open 25 more branches in the GCC region in 2015. Together with new East Asian branches and expansion to North and East Africa and the broader Middle East, LuLu Exchange will open some 45 new branches in 2015 alone. Later on, plans are to expand to Europe and the Americas “to establish a wider global footprint,” as Yusuff Ali puts it.
LuLu Group’s history goes back to the 1990s when it launched with its first department stores in the Middle East. Today, the group is a large 30,000-employee conglomerate spread into various other business sectors such as manufacturing, food processing, commodities trading, import, export and distribution, mall construction and management, as well as money services. The group’s annual revenue is touching $5bn and its founder Yusuff Ali MA has become the fourth richest Indian in the Middle East at a net worth of $2.2bn.
