Inside Majid Al Futtaim’s Nearly $30 Billion Expansion

Magad Alpha team has spent more than three decades building places where the Middle East comes to shop, eat, and be entertained. But this year, more disrupted travel and tourism, striking at the heart of one of the Gulf's largest consumer businesses. >> Consumer confidence, consumer spend was obviously dampened. So obviously there was a noticeable, I would say, demand shock. >> But even as uncertainty continues, Magid Alphaame is pressing ahead with a development pipeline. it values at nearly $30 billion alongside new investments in technology, digital retail and physical destinations. >> We are staying the course on that. We are a developer not with cycles. We're a developer through cycles. We believe in the markets that we operate in. Founded in 1992, Magidel Fatame has grown to become one of the region's largest privately held groups. Its businesses [music] span shopping malls, residential communities, and hotels, as well as supermarkets, cinemas, and digital retail across the Middle East, Africa, and Central Asia. In 2025, it reported record revenue of 35.9 billion dirhams or nearly 10 billion US up 6% from the previous year. While its scale and diversified portfolio offered some protection as war disrupted tourism and consumer spending in 2026, it also exposed a business heavily [music] dependent on people continuing to shop, travel, and spend. I met Group CEO Ahmed Gal Isma at Mall of the Emirates where a $1.4 billion transformation is underway. A just looking around today, one thing that really sticks out to me is the fact that this mall is not empty, right? People still love that brickandmortar retail experience. >> The formula is very simple. You know, you you invest in the experience, you do it in partnership with your brands, you put the right human capital behind it, and customers continue to reward us with better footfall and better spend. Mall of the Emirates is, you know, oneif of the way through. Yet another transformation, five billion over five years. It includes new infrastructure, roads and bridges around the mall. We're expanding the mall, adding 10% more leasable space, 100 more shops. But beyond sort of the physical infrastructure, it is the experiences that are changing. New culture experience, new dining experience. For the first time, we'll have an indoor outdoor dining precinct in Mall of the Emirates. So that continuous reinvention and reinterpretation of the retail experience as weight makes a destination like Mall of the Emirates almost timeless. You've been leading this business over the last 6 months of conflict here in the region. How does footfall compare today? If you take out sort of the short period of business interruption when the hostilities started against the UEF on a year-to-year basis, footfall has almost been flattish which means that uh you know if you exclude the tourism component that has yet to return to pre-conlict levels actually domestic demand has been quite robust. >> Keeping those consumers spending is only part of the challenge. The war with Iran has forced business leaders across the region to manage immediate disruption without losing sight of their long-term plans. Tourism remains under pressure. Passenger traffic carried by Middle Eastern Airlines fell nearly 60% yearonear in March, the first full month of the war. At Dubai International, passenger traffic was down 31% across the first half of 2026. Walk me through the operating environment right now. what is it looking like? >> So, it's important to to acknowledge that, you know, the current operating environment is is obviously, you know, unpredictable, but we're quite fortunate that we're coming into the current situation from a extreme position of strength. And what we've seen in the first half of 2026 is something that goes well beyond resilience. uh we've seen a certain type of dynamism uh across you know Dubai, UAE and many of the markets where we operate where it's not just about adapting to unexpected events in such a calm and collected way but also staying the course in terms of long-term investments and that's precisely you know our posture. And you mentioned you came into 2026 on a record high here, but where has the war actually had an impact and where has it shown up in the business? The second quarter was quite testing for for everyone. Consumer confidence, consumer spend was obviously dampened. Tourism revenues uh have significantly diminished. So obviously there was a short but sort of very noticeable I would say demand demand shock. What we've seen is actually quite a rapid recovery. And when you consider our first half results, we did grow revenues yearon year collectively plus 1% still positive growth in a very challenging environment. But more importantly, we've grown our ebida by 11%, our operating income by a good source of 38%. So we've been not just been able to absorb, but we've been able to absorb rebound very quickly. And part of the advantage of magic for tame is obviously our diversified portfolio >> in the UAE alone. I was reading that airport traffic fell something like 30% in the first half. So that really speaks to the demand shock that you were talking about. How much of the business domestically is really dependent on people who don't live here? >> The UEE economy is very well diversified. That's an important point to to acknowledge. Oil represents less than 50% of GDP and and declining. And when we look across our business, the vast majority of demand for our shopping, retail and entertainment businesses comes from domestic demand. And domestic demand has actually proven to be a lot more resilient than tourism demand. We've seen certainly instances, you know, where customers have delayed some major purchases, you know, non-food purchases for instance, or elective purchases. We've seen customers economize on on their basket. But we've seen a steady and I would say uh quite reassuring recovery in in domestic uh demand. >> Magalotame has built its scale in the physical world [music] through malls, supermarkets and cinemas. But some of its fastest growing businesses are now digital. The group says it invests more than a billion dirhams a year in technology and AI. That's roughly $270 million US. We'll continue to double down on that type of investment and the proof is actually in the performance also of of the business. One of the areas that has continued to seen tremendous growth is our digital platform business. So our quick commerce business you know grew almost 38% last year in the first half of the year despite supply chain disruptions availability and other sort of demand shocks has grown double digits. our ATTE business which is our first you know digitally native AI enabled business uh grew last year almost 50% this year again very high double digits so we continue to be I would say focused on dealing with the challenges short-term as they may be and at the same time continuing to invest for for the future >> what are the technologies that you think could have the biggest impact on the retail space in the decades to come >> I'm quite cautious about making predictions for decades to come. I think in this fast-paced environment, it's very difficult to make predictions. Obviously, AI is a, you know, is a big force that's transforming businesses, you know, inside out. We we've seen, you know, uh, good return on AI investments and we're very disciplined when it comes to AI investments because it is a expensive tech. But it's important to remain disciplined. You cannot use AI everywhere and you cannot use AI in isolation of human ingenuity. So we think about you know our workforce we have you know 40,000 mafers like myself. Are we going to have 10,000 20,000 40,000 co- mafers within 2 or 3 years? I don't know. But what I know is that the future of what we do will always depend on our ability to empower our mafers to be the best mafers they can and at the same time be able to make the best use of you know agents and co-affers that are now available to them. >> A lot of industries are thinking about technology and artificial intelligence as maybe a new competitor to their business. What would you say is Magental Futame's biggest competitor right now? The biggest I would say competitor for for Magic Futame uh is our past success. You know, we've had fantastic three-year run, record profitability, the strongest balance sheet we've had in a decade. The biggest risk to us is complacency and complacency then uh drives us to focus more internally uh focus on competitors and lose focus on customers. [music] Even as the war weighs on consumer spending and tourism, the group is still looking to expand across the region with multi-billion dollar developments planned in the UAE and Egypt and further growth in Saudi Arabia and East Africa. You're operating here in the Gulf, you're in Egypt, you're in the Levant, Central Asia. Which market would you say is changing the fastest right now? >> The UEE is a unique market. you're competing with the globe and and that's a market that we're quite fortunate to be, you know, anchored in the US and in our home market because that allows us to continue to move at speed, uh, innovate and helps us actually compete internationally as well. Beyond our core UE market, we see UE and Saudi being the two biggest markets for sure. We see tremendous growth opportunities in in Egypt where we've invested, you know, for close to 25 years and we have, you know, a great track record with all of our businesses. And East Africa for us is is a new sort of growth horizon. We have 3,000 colleagues who work in East Africa. And when I project sort of five, seven years outwards, there is a genuine opportunity for Magifot to double its value over that time horizon. I think when you add all of our new destinations that are coming online over the coming 5 years that probably adds north of 100 perhaps 150 billion dirhams. So, so the future is quite exciting for Major Futame. >> Did you say you expect to be able to double the size of the business? >> Double the value of the business. Yeah. And that that's an important distinction. The ambition is to double the equity value of the company. That does not necessarily that we're going to double, you know, the size of the business, but we're going to create a business that is a lot more fit for the future and certainly a lot more valuable. The group holds the exclusive rights to operate more than 390 caraphor stores across 12 markets in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. [music] When shipping through the street of Hormuz was impacted, concerns about supplies and prices extended across the Gulf. Dubai's Jebel Ali port handles around 90% of the UAE's imported grains and oil seeds. It's also a gateway for food and perishables bound for Saudi Arabia, [music] Bahrain, and Qatar, part of a supply network serving as many as 50 million people. This is a region that imports most of what we see here on the shelves. With horm disrupted, what was the impact? >> So, we do imports, but we don't import everything. Uh and a lot of the basic foods actually never get on a ship. They're delivered by road either locally or from the surrounding region. Uh almost up to I would say 80% of dairy doesn't get on a ship or a plane. Uh 50% of fresh poultry for instance also comes mostly from local sources. So food security has never been an an issue. Obviously any supply chain disruption coupled with an increase in oil prices is inflationary. You mentioned the inflation impact. How much higher did prices actually go? >> What we do know is every 10% long-term increase in oil prices leads eventually to around 0.4% food inflation. We've not passed it in full to our customers. It's our responsibility through tech innovation, supply chain investments to make sure that we continue to bring products at the best levels of affordability to the market. So while some branded imported product prices have gone up, what we've managed to offer is local alternatives or sort of even lower price entry-level products to help customers manage through sort of high inflation period. So there are multiple solutions to get around that. At a macro level, the UAE and the wider GCC have very strong fiscal buffers. >> You've been in this role for several years now, but you've never had to confront a war. How has the past six months changed you as a leader? >> So leaders who don't change become irrelevant very quickly and leaders who uh uh don't have the humility intellectually and otherwise to accept that we need to continue to grow and and learn you know lose touch and um you know ultimately ultimately fail. I truly believe in this whole notion of refounding that you need to refound yourself first. At the same time, be very open about shortcomings, failures, adjust quickly, learn and bring the team along that journey to help them refound themselves because you know refounding is a team sport. >> You said that there's unlikely to ever be another Majid Alpha team. What does it mean to carry that name? It is a name that inspires uh not just uh trust in the past but belief in the future. Uh so anybody who works or has worked for magical team is always very proud of that association. Uh we continue to honor the legacy, strengthen the foundations but also refound and build a new to be able to aspire the the future. And I think the major foot brand will continue to you know go from strength to strength wherever we operate.