The UAE backed Sharia’sG-compliant financial services giant, the Gulf Islamic Investments (GII), has hugely set their priority on upsurging the Assets Under Management (AUM) through $1 Billion within this year in 2021.
The firm has also been focussed upon garnering a total investment worth $300 Million within the Logistics as well as warehousing the real estate arena within the Middle Eastern territory, this financial year as a business part of an association with an institutional investor.
Within all the prospect of a possible global economic rebound from the COVID-19 Pandemic aftermath, it would depict in general a 50 percent upsurge from the existing level of $2 Billion that GII has under global management as it avails the investment prospects globally.
The GII’s firm’s prevailing investments within the UAE is inclusive of firms that are pioneers in the Logistics, ghost kitchen, as well as plethora of diverse industries like E-Commerce and others as well.
Its universal portfolio embraces over $30 million investment articulated within the Silicon Valley-based zSpace, a virtual reality establishment in the education and training space globally.
GII’s AUM evolution announcement tracks its move to launch a $50 million second India focused fund – India Growth Portfolio II (IGP-II) – to violently swell its investments in businesses across sectors in the south Asian nation.
Mohammed Alhassan, founding partner and co-CEO of Gulf Islamic Investments, stated that: “GII has set a target of reaching $3 billion assets under management by end of this year.” As for its investment plans in the UAE and grander GCC region, Alhassan further stated that: “GII is a big believer in the UAE and the GCC markets and remains vigilant about exponential opportunities in the region.”
He further added that: “GII continues to see a substantial number of quality deals in our regional pipeline. Prospective deals on the horizon include a variety of segments including logistics, healthcare, new technology companies, consumer businesses, private equity and real estate, to name a few.”
Alhassan further added that the logistics and warehousing investment prospects provide a supportable long term income generating prospect that offers a steady quarterly coupon for GII’s investors.
He also discovered GII’s forthcoming strategies for a foremost investment into this segment.
The GII co-founder also further added that: “Requirement for high quality and well-located logistics and warehousing real estate is a vital component for the overall business model of global and regional MNC’s, which makes this business very attractive. This is constantly evolving and growing towards being a more asset light model.”
He stated further that with E-commerce retail sales only making a surge of about 5 percent in GCC comparatively to approximately 15 percent in advanced nations, the demand for these assets is guaranteed to view an upsurge going forward.
“We believe investments in the logistics and warehousing real estate will be a winning bet in view of the increasing demand for industrial and logistics assets driven by the tech and e-commerce industry, as also due to the emerging global corporate trend towards asset light business models.”
“Besides, this will also add value to the GII portfolio through efficient diversification and risk management,” he stated.
Ghost Kitchen Space
The first query our avid readers will ponder upon is What really is a Ghost Kitchen?
A ghost kitchen is a proficient food groundwork and cooking talent set up for the training of delivery-only meals. Although GII has been prominent in the segment since 2019, it legally ventured into operations in 2020 as a confined unit.
Alhassan stated that the ghost kitchen segment is another arena wherein GII will be having a bet big on for advancing its returns.
Alhassan stated that: “Our robust existing infrastructure and know-how to support expansion strategy through efficient operations and key focus on unit economics gives us strong potential to scale and to reach a wider customer base across the key GCC markets.”
He also further added that: ““We are among the pioneers in this industry with an early mover advantage, and among the handful of players with established presence and track record of having successfully rolled out eight ghost kitchen brands.”
The ghost kitchen space is presently one of the swiftest expanding businesses globally.
The UAE and the broader Middle East are among the most agile budding food delivery territories globally, with an appraised compounded yearly evolution rate of 30 percent as against 9.5 percent globally.
