Al Ghurair is founder of Al Ghurair, a United Arab Emirates-based family-owned conglomerate. It owns the UAE's largest flour mill, a commodities trader, a water company, an animal-feed producer, as well as hotels, apartments and a Dubai shopping mall. He also has stakes in Mashreq Bank and National Cement Company.
Al Ghurair is the founder of a family holding company, Al Ghurair Investment, that owns more than 14 businesses operating in eight industries. He owns 85% of the group according to disclosures in a 2011 lawsuit and is credited with the same amount in this analysis. His three sons own the rest.
Al Ghurair Investment owns all of agricultural commodities-trader Al Ghurair Resources, food manufacturer Al Ghurair Foods and building materials company Al Ghurair Construction, according to private company filings. The family owns mineral water company Masafi outside of the holding company.
Information about the businesses is limited and revenue is estimated for two of his private companies. The food group's revenue is based on the company's market share at the time of its split with Al Ghurair Resources in 2010 and peers' sales growth. Al Ghurair Construction's revenue is based on a 2008 disclosure and peers' sales growth.
Al Ghurair Investment's commercial property holdings are valued using the income capitalization method based on information on Al Ghurair's corporate website and market data from Jones Lang Lasalle, Knight Frank and CBRE.
The value of the group's 50% stake in Libyan oil refinery Ras Lanuf was reduced to zero in August 2018 because the plant has closed.
Al Ghurair Investment is distinct from Al Ghurair Group, which is also a conglomerate with interests across a range of industries in the UAE. Al Ghurair Group was founded by Abdullah Al Ghurair's brother, Saif, who died in 2019. Abdullah Al Ghurair is not credited with a stake in his brother's company.
In July 2015 he announced a third of his assets have been pledged to a charitable foundation. These assets haven't been deducted from his net worth since it's unclear whether they've been transferred to the charity.
Sameera Fernandes, communications manager for the group, didn't reply to calls and emails requesting comment on Al Ghurair's net worth.
Abdullah Ahmad Al Ghurair was born in Dubai around the 1930s. His father, Ahmed, was a pearl diver and trader in Dubai, at the time a fishing village with a thriving port and a population of about 20,000, a quarter of whom were expatriates. After World War II, the invention of cultured pearls decimated the local trade and, with support from Dubai's ruling Al Maktoum family, the Al Ghurairs diversified into industrial activities. The ruling clan further enriched them and Dubai's other prominent business families by leveraging their trading skills as they modernized the local economy after oil was discovered in 1953.
In the 1960s, Abdullah founded Al Ghurair Group, a holding company for the family's growing industrial concerns, creating one of the region's first cement factories and an aluminum smelter. With his brother Saif he helped expand the family business into property, finance and food. The family founded the United Arab Emirates' first flour processor, National Flour Mills, which is now part of Al Ghurair Food, in 1976. Saif and Abdullah split the family business into two separate companies in the 1990s, with Saif heading Al Ghurair Group and Abdullah heading Al Ghurair Investments, later renamed Al Ghurair.
Abdullah is not involved in day-to-day management at his family's holding group. His son Abdul Aziz, born in 1954, is chairman and president at Al Ghurair as well as chief executive at Mashreq, a Dubai bank that is majority owned by both branches of the Al Ghurair family and chaired by Abdullah. His son Essa, born in 1956, is Al Ghurair's vice chairman and also heads its food manufacturing business, Al Ghurair Food, and its agricultural commodities trading offshoot, Al Ghurair Resources. His other sons, Sultan and Mohammed, are also involved in the family business. Sultan serves on the board of directors at Mashreq and is director of business development at Al Ghurair Energy, which owns a stake in Libya's Ras Lanuf oil refinery. Mohammed is a managing director at National Cement Company in Dubai and Essa is head of Al Ghurair Resources.