Guiding promise: Saudi Arabian commerce

As founder of Dallah Albaraka, Sheikh Saleh Abdullah Kamel began his business career at an early age based on a series of strong beliefs and principles. By the late 1960s, he had laid the foundation for the development of Dallah Albaraka Group, by the early twenty first century which was to become one of Saudi Arabia’s largest and most diversified conglomerates, spanning worldwide across forty countries.

Preserving the culture and heritage of his people is paramount for Sheikh Saleh Kamel. With Dallah Albaraka’s expansion, the group has developed itself as a bedrock of Saudi culture.

It was during the first oil boom of the 1960s, that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia witnessed an unprecedented economic growth. The government undertook major spending programmes to develop an infrastructure with enormous efforts to build the foundation for economic diversification with private-sector participation.

Sheikh Saleh Kamel took up the challenge of implementing major governmental plans and visions through Dallah Albaraka participating in major national infrastructure projects, such as the building of roads, hospitals, installation of pipelines and sewage networks, a central sports complex and numerous electric power stations.

Within these government projects and public works, the group was awarded concessions for the cleaning and maintenance of the two Holy Mosques in Makkah and Madinah and the respective pilgrimage sites. These large-scale projects allowed the group to employ over sixty thousand people while providing a platform for the group’s increasingly diversified investments. From their onset, the group’s interests have remained focused on three primary categories; business, media and finance.

During the mid-1970s, Dallah Albaraka’s business sector expanded its public works investments programme which includes Dallah Avco Trans Arabia Company. A company who specialises in the construction, operation, and maintenance of airports. The group was then awarded the contracts for a large number of airports and related concessions throughout the country, such as the contract to maintain and operate the country’s extensive air traffic control system.

Nurturing growth
Sheikh Saleh Kamel also founded a medical clinic in Jeddah in 1977. Originally created to provide healthcare services to the growing number of Albaraka employees, the clinic has grown into a fully fledged medical facility. The company’s involvement in healthcare has led it to expand its business into hospital ownership, with the 1987 opening of the Dallah hospital in Riyadh. The company also launched a comprehensive chain of medical and dental clinics throughout Saudi Arabia and into North Africa, leading to the development of a new subsidiary – Dallah Health Services Holding Company – which in addition to the operation of healthcare facilities, provides various medical and pharmaceutical support services to healthcare facilities throughout the Arab world.

The company’s interests have also turned towards the media. In 1977 Dallah Albaraka launched the Arab Media Company, one of Saudi Arabia’s first television, radio, and film production companies. The media operations later expanded into broadcasting, and the company became a founding member of the Middle East Broadcasting Centre in the 1980s.

Dallah Albaraka’s growing media empire includes ‘First Net’ – a subscription television service comprised of ART and a host of other channels – which was launched in 1996, with Iqra, an Islamic Arab satellite channel to follow in 1998. By then, ART had acquired some fifty percent of the entire Arab film catalogue as well as the Arab broadcasting rights to a number of important sporting events, such as the football World Cup.

In 1999, the company extended its media operations with Saudi Digital Distribution Company, which provided marketing and distribution services for ART’s own channels as well as some fifty other television channels in the area. Furthering Dallah Albaraka’s business in media operations, the company acquired stakes in three Saudi research and publishing companies, (Asharq Al-Awsat, a leading Arabic international newspaper, being one of those).

In 1983, the company expanded its business into real estate development, when Dallah Albaraka participated in the Tunis Lake project, a vast complex of commercial and residential developments covering some 13m square metres in Tunis, Tunisia.

Following Tunis Lake came the 1997 launch of Durrat Al-Arus, a tourist city on the Red Sea in Jeddah, and the first waterfront community in the Middle East. The completion of the project’s first phase spanned some 2.3m square metres, while the launch of the second phase just a few years later added another five million square metres.

In 2006, Durrat Al Riyadh was created. A project that spans over 10m square metres, offering a unique real estate opportunity, aiming to provide a state-of-the-art housing community located north of Riyadh City. Currently, Dallah Albaraka is developing the King Abdul Aziz Road Project that will lie within the Holy City of Makkah covering a total area of 1.173m metres. The road extends to the Holy Mosque beginning at Makkah’s Western Entrance. The project has numerous strategic, developmental, urban, environmental and investment values. Total development costs for the complete project are to be about SR 35bn.

Raising capital
In 1979 the firm’s business activities expanded into the Arabic financial markets with the launch of the Islamic Arab Insurance Company in Dubai. The company’s growth into the finance industry was due in large part to Sheikh Saleh’s belief in the development of theories for creating a new type of “Islamic bank.” That being; a bank that respects the Islamic Shari’a law, which is, in particular the rejection of western-style interest rates, that are considered as usury by Muslims. Islamic banking principles replace interest rates with various Islamic systems thus creating a partnership system in which the lender and borrower together share both the risk of loss and the possibility of corresponding profit on investment.

Sheikh Saleh Kamel is considered one of the original pioneers in developing the Islamic banking and finance industry, founding Albaraka Banking Group (ABG). Through ABG, Dallah Albaraka Group’s presence is felt globally. ABG’s mission is to be the leading Islamic banking group with worldwide presence, offering retail, commercial, investment banking and treasury services, all strictly in accordance with principles of Shari’a law. In 1982, Sheikh Saleh Kamel became one of the first individuals to launch an Islamic bank, incorporating his Albaraka Investment and Development Company (ABID) as a vehicle for the creation of said banks, insurance companies and investment firms based on Islamic Financial Theory.

The company’s first branches were opened in Saudi Arabia and they quickly extended their interests to other Arabic and Islamic markets. By 1984, Albaraka had opened a bank in Sudan, and by the end of the decade, Albaraka banks were established in Algeria, Jordan, Lebanon, Bahrain, Egypt, Malaysia, South Africa, England, and » Pakistan. These banks, while owned by Dallah Albaraka, remained for the most part independent entities.The development of the Albaraka Bank Network encouraged Sheikh Saleh Kamel to explore further aspects of Islamic Financial Ideology. In 1987 the company launched Al-Amin Company for Securities and Investment Funds, one of the first institutions to once again offer investment vehicles according to Islamic principles. The company later converted to bank status, giving it the ability to launch securities products that respected Islamic banking ideals. The bank also became one of the first to obtain authorisation to offer a dual-tier shareholder system, which creates management and partnership share classes.
Also that year, the company launched the Arab Leasing International Finance Company (ALIF), which made vehicle and equipment lease financing products available to the Arab world.

ABID continued to develop financial services for the Arabic and Islamic markets by launching a series of companies in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In Tunis, for example, the company opened BEST Re-Insurance, and in Dubai, ABID was behind the launch of the Islamic Arab Insurance Company. Similarly in Bahrain, the company opened Islamic Insurance & Re-Insurance, and in Jordan, ABID’s Jordan Islamic Bank opened the Islamic Mutual Insurance Company in 1994.

With his underlying commitment to the development of Islamic Banking, Sheikh Saleh Kamel has become chairman and General Council for Islamic Banks and other assorted financial institutions. Under the current economic climate, Sheikh Saleh Kamel chose not to withdraw or pull out of regions; but in fact he accelerated initiatives that he believed would assist the growth of Islamic finance, therefore contributing to the reshaping and transformation of the Islamic financial world.

With Sheikh Saleh Kamel increasing focus and responsibilities to Islamic banking, his son Mr. Abdullah Saleh Kamel has now taken over as president and CEO of Dallah Albaraka Group. Following the guidance of his father’s great expertise in the sector, Mr. Abdullah Saleh Kamel is prepared with the skills to lead the group onward to further success in the future. Mr. Abdullah Saleh Kamel agrees that the group’s confidence lies in the strong foundation of its beliefs and in the continued reflection of the past four decades, strengthening its strides towards future achievements.