Guy Sauvage: Al Meera CEO

By Joey Aguilar
Staff Reporter


Despite the oil price slowdown, Al Meera Consumer Goods Company is expecting continuous growth in the coming years due to its expansion plans within Qatar and Oman.
Speaking to Gulf Times, Al Meera CEO Guy Sauvage noted that they were not directly affected by the oil crisis as a retailer and customers are used to buying food products to feed their families.
Al Meera’s business model is quite strong and has a very low level of expenses, according to Sauvage.
“It means that we can cope with such a crisis, maybe a little bit more easily rather than other industries.”
After opening nine new branches, Al Meera earlier announced that it would establish 14 new stores across Qatar in the coming years. It now has a total of 47 branches, comprising 42 in Qatar and five in Oman.
“For a long time we have been on expansion, it means that our volume is growing and as much as volume is growing, the level of expenses is absorbed and in terms of ratio, is decreased,” he explained.
About expansion plans in the region, Sauvage said the current political and economic situation within the region “is not really very supportive for any expansion” and retailers like them had to be cautious.
“Let us wait for some settlement within the region, crisis or political prospective, and we will see what will happen later on,” he added.
About the response of Qatar and Oman to the oil price slowdown, the CEO noted that there was a huge difference between the countries.
“We need to improve our operations so fortunately up to now we have been able to reach profitability and we are cash positive in Oman,” Sauvage disclosed.
However, he admitted that they still needed to improve, grow and open new stores through organic expansions of new acquisitions.
He also said that next year would be more challenging but expressed confidence that they would benefit from their expansions.
“We have opened 10 malls this year and we have plans to open at least six malls in the coming years so that will help us in Qatar, that will help us to sustain decent level of growth,” he added.


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