Because while joining the family business comes with lots of pros (a Ferrari is one example), Sajan had to prove he wasn’t ‘a daddy’s boy.’ But something tells us good fortune played only a small part in his success. For the past four years, he’s been on track. In 2014, he set a plan to grow the retail business as much as 10 times in the span of six years. Initially, it takes time, but it’s picking up.” So by the end of 2019, we should be in 10 countries, excluding our home markets. “Currently, in franchises, we have about five stores in three countries, but, this year, we signed a lot of contracts. “We have tied up with different partners and opened in Tanzania, Seychelles, Uganda and now we have plans to open in Nepal, Egypt, Zambia and Lebanon,” he says. Though his son Adel has since switched to an equally lavish black Bentley with customised red interiors, to be fair, he’s bought it all on his own.Īnd why wouldn’t he? He is already looking to develop the brand by trying out the franchising model. I remember would get AED10 pocket money and he would ask for extra money, so I would say ‘go wash my car’,” says the founder and chairman of the Danube Group, himself worth at least $2.5 billion.
When we started the real estate business, we decided we are not going to target the luxury businessĪnd while he’s all for providing a comfortable life for his family, the elder Sajan quickly jumps in to clarify his purchase of the Ferrari, stating that his son was only given the Italian supercar once he had fully earned it. His father told Arabian Business at the time, “The wedding of my only son Adel is by far the most awaited event of my life and words cannot express the joy I feel.” The 1,100 guest-list comprised the richest and most famous from India and the UAE, including Bollywood stars Shilpa Shetty Kundra, Gauhar Khan, and music directors Meet Bros and Vishal-Shekhar. In 2017, his father spent a whopping $30m on his son’s wedding, which was held over four days on a Bollywood-themed cruise in the Mediterranean. Of course, the young Sajan is no stranger to the luxury life.
“That was something I’d wanted for a long-time.” “I made my dad buy me a Ferrari,” he says. “I started to enjoy it,” he recalls.īut if you’re driving a Ferrari to work, what’s not to enjoy? you throw a kid into a swimming pool… he throw me into buying, without any experience.”ĭespite many a missed summer parties, it worked out well for Sajan. “He sent me abroad with a million dollars and said, ‘Go and source chandeliers’. Luckily, his father threw him into the deep end from the very beginning. Had it not been for his father’s strict instructions to brand managers – “don’t treat him like my son, be extra strict with him” – Sajan might not have done any of the above. Under young Sajan’s leadership, the brand aspires to open eight new stores annually, adding 500,000 sq ft of retail space over the next five years.
The one-stop destination for furniture and interior design assistance offers customers up to 50,000 individual products sourced from the US, Germany, Turkey, Spain, India, Malaysia, Vietnam, China and Italy.īut he’s not stopping there. At just 29 years old today, he has transformed the group’s home décor and furniture wing Danube Home (previously Buildmart) into a global force spanning the UAE, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Bahrain. Since the age of 13, that’s exactly what Adel’s been doing. Then again, if your father is Rizwan Sajan, the man who transformed that same, small Deira trading office into one of the region’s biggest suppliers of building materials – the Danube Group – you might as well skip the holidays to try and keep up.Ī lot of the staff the notion that this 22 year-old is coming in because he’s ‘daddy’s son’ “You know how you have summer holidays between schools? I used to spend my summer holidays at our building materials shop in Deira,” he says, laughing. Joining the family business was never going to be a walk in the park for Adel Sajan. In a rare joint interview, billionaire businessman Rizwan Sajan sits down with brother Anis and only son Adel to share what it really takes to build a lasting family dynasty.