Latest news with #YousefAlShelash
Forbes
16 hours ago
- Business
- Forbes
Trump Received Millions Of Dollars From Saudi Real Estate Developer
Donald Trump spoke at a Saudi-U.S. business investment forum in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia in May, during the first official foreign trip of his second term. Since winning back the presidency in November, Donald Trump's family real estate firm has been on a dealmaking spree. Since the beginning of 2024, the Trump Organization has launched and struck deals to develop luxury residential skyscrapers and golf clubs in a host of foreign countries, including Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Vietnam. The president's latest financial disclosure, filed on Friday, reveals just how much he benefited from these projects last year. No entity appears to have paid Trump more than Dar Al Arkan, a publicly traded Saudi real estate developer cofounded and chaired by centimillionaire Yousef Al Shelash. The firm paid the Trump Organization $21.9 million in license fees in 2024 for projects in Dubai and Oman, according to the disclosure. That's on top of $5.35 million the firm paid Trump's company between 2021 and 2022 for licensing the Trump name for a hotel, golf club and villa complex in Oman. Altogether, Forbes estimates Trump has received more than $27 million from Dar Al Arkan since 2021. (Trump also reported $2.5 million in fees from Dar Al Arkan in his August 2024 disclosure, although that covers 2023 and part of 2024, potentially overlapping with his latest filing.) Al Shelash has cultivated a close relationship with the Trump family, calling it a "friendship" at the December launch event of the Trump Tower Jeddah, a 47-floor luxury residential skyscraper on Saudi Arabia's Red Sea coast. Eric Trump, the president's middle son and the executive vice president of his Trump Organization, called Al Shelash "a member of the Trump family and somebody I truly love dearly" at the same event. The Saudi real estate tycoon is wealthy in his own right, with an estimated $900 million fortune, largely held in shares of Dar Al Arkan. Dar Al Arkan now has at least six projects in the works with the Trump Organization, spanning hotels, golf clubs, villas and luxury apartments in Dubai, Oman Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Al Shelash also told CNBC Arabia in January that his firm was working with the Trump Organization on a seventh project in Greece that has not been formally announced. Many of the projects were agreed to after Trump finished his first term as president. The golf club and villa development in Qatar, announced in April, was the first to be launched since Trump returned to the Oval Office. The Trump Organization is pursuing deals elsewhere in Asia as well. In May, the firm announced construction had begun on a Trump-branded golf and residential project in Vietnam in partnership with Hung Yen Hospitality, a subsidiary of Vietnamese publicly traded developer Kinh Bac City Development Holding Corp. According to Trump's latest disclosure, Hung Yen paid the president's company $5 million in licensing fees in 2024. Eric Trump traveled to Vietnam in May to attend the groundbreaking ceremony for the development–which is set to cost $1.5 billion to build over four years–with Kinh Bac's chairman, Dang Thanh Tam. Dang got his start in industrial development, building Kinh Bac into a major industrial developer with clients ranging from South Korean conglomerate LG to Apple supplier Foxconn. His and his family's shares in Kinh Bac and SaigonTel, a publicly traded telecoms and industrial development firm, are worth an estimated $160 million. In an interview with Forbes Vietnam in May, he said that his firm had started looking into building a golf course in 2023 and signed an agreement with the Trump Organization in late September, six weeks before the U.S. presidential election. "President Donald Trump visited Vietnam twice during his first term and expressed his love for our country," Dang told Forbes Vietnam, noting that the project was speedily approved by Vietnamese authorities. 'When the conditions were right, we moved very quickly! At the same time, we understood the value of the Trump brand and had great faith in The Trump Organization and their high international standards.' Trump is likely set to receive millions more in licensing and management fees from his firm's projects over the rest of his second term as president. Besides the deal in Vietnam and the Dar Al Arkan developments in Dubai and Oman, he has yet to declare any income from the Dar Al Arkan projects in Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Not all of the Trump family's international dealings are proceeding as planned: a $500 million luxury hotel development in the Serbian capital of Belgrade, in partnership with his son-in-law Jared Kushner's private equity firm Affinity Partners and Emirati billionaire Mohamed Alabbar, was put into doubt last month when local prosecutors revealed that a cultural official had forged a document used to help the project move forward. A spokesperson for the Trump Organization has not yet responded to a request for comment on the status of the Belgrade project.
Forbes
20-05-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Forbes Daily: As Graduations Get Political, Protests Bring High Stakes
Out of all the Trump Organization's business partners, Saudi real estate tycoon Yousef Al Shelash may be the one who has paid President Donald Trump the most. And Trump is making out from the deals, too. His company has announced at least six Trump-branded real estate deals in the Middle East in the last three years. Al Shelash, who has stayed under the radar globally, is worth $900 million, per Forbes' calculations, largely due to his shares of Dar Al Arkan, parent company of real estate developer Dar Global. From just one Dar Global project in Oman, Trump disclosed earning more than $7 million in licensing fees between 2021 and early 2024. He's likely to earn millions more over the rest of his presidency. Graduate students and demonstrators protest the war in Gaza after walking out of commencement at the DKR-Texas Memorial Stadium in Austin, Texas. As students graduate across the country, some are once again using their commencement ceremonies to protest the war in Gaza. But this spring, the stakes are notably higher for students and schools, as the Trump Administration has criticized colleges for failing to bring down the hammer on pro-Palestinian protests, and withheld billions of federal funds from universities. Major stock indexes ended the day slightly up Monday despite an earlier decline after the financial ratings agency Moody's downgraded the U.S. government's credit rating late last week, raising U.S. Treasury yields, a move that tends to coincide with investor concerns about the long-term effects of the growing national debt. According to one estimate, the GOP's budget bill will add $3.3 trillion more to the federal government's debt over the next decade. First lady Melania Trump speaks as President Donald Trump listens during a bill signing event for the "Take it Down Act" on Monday in Washington. President Donald Trump signed a bipartisan bill into law Monday that requires online platforms to remove non-consensual intimate imagery, including AI-generated deepfakes, within 48 hours of a request. While the focus of the bill was to protect young people from threats of exploitation, it could also help women and others in public or professional roles, who are increasingly being targeted. The Supreme Court paved the way for the Trump Administration to remove hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans from the U.S. as the administration seeks to rescind their temporary protected status, typically granted to immigrants who can't safely return home. The court's decision means the Trump Administration can deport people while litigation moves forward, though it's possible a court could still later reinstate Venezuelans' temporary protected status. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), said he will introduce a bill preventing foreign aircraft from being used as Air Force One, as President Donald Trump's reported plans to accept a $400 million luxury plane from Qatar draw bipartisan criticism. Meanwhile, Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani suggested in an interview that allegations of bribery over the sale could be efforts to unfairly malign his country's image. The Justice Department on Monday charged Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-N.J.), with assaulting federal agents during a confrontation outside an immigration detention center in New Jersey earlier this month, a move the Congresswoman denounced as 'purely political.' Alina Habba, the acting U.S. attorney for the District of New Jersey, said she gave the Congresswoman 'every opportunity to come to a resolution, but she has unfortunately declined.' Russia and Ukraine will directly negotiate ceasefire talks 'immediately,' President Donald Trump said following his call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday, though neither leader indicated any real progress was made to end or pause the violence. Trump struck a positive tone when describing the call, though recently he's taken a less friendly tone and threatened sanctions against Putin, as he's grown tired of Russia's refusal to agree to a ceasefire. The FAA is investigating another air traffic control outage at Newark Airport that occurred Monday, as the airport has been dogged with technical challenges and delays. There were no flight issues during Monday's two-second outage, and flights were experiencing an average delay of 23 minutes due to staffing issues, per the FAA. Micki Witthoeft, mother of Ashli Babbitt, joins protesters outside of the Supreme Court on the second anniversary of the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol. The Justice Department is in talks to settle a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the family of Ashli Babbitt, an Air Force veteran who was killed by police at the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot, multiple outlets reported. The Trump Administration is preparing to pay nearly $5 million to Babbitt's estate, which had sought $30 million in damages and alleged that Babbitt did not go to Washington 'as part of a group or for any unlawful or nefarious purpose,' but rather to exercise her freedoms. The SBA says it's bringing back discipline after a stretch of loose lending. But in trying to clean things up, it's tangling up deals that don't need fixing. The Trump Administration's Small Business Administration is hitting rewind, bringing back old (pre-Biden) standards in an effort, it says, to make SBA-backed loans safer for the government. But some of the new rules, which kick in on June 1, are stricter than they were during Trump's first term. One, for example, requires any business getting an SBA-backed loan to be 100% (up from 51%) owned by U.S. citizens and those who have been permanent residents for at least six months. Another makes it nearly impossible for a business seller to stay on as a partial owner. The result is that deals are falling apart just as some aging Baby Boomer owners are looking to sell. The new rules affect the SBA's popular 7(a) and 504 loan programs, which offer government-backed financing for small businesses. The 7(a) program is the most widely used, allowing loans of up to $5 million for general needs like working capital, equipment, or buying a company. Business owners turn to SBA loans because the federal guarantee makes banks more willing to lend and often results in better terms than conventional financing. In fiscal 2024, the SBA guaranteed 76,235 loans with a total value of $37.8 billion through these two programs. Most of the new rules are a reset, bringing standards back in line with what was in place at the end of President Trump's first term in office. But some changes have left many in the industry questioning whether the SBA move is really just about safer lending or is more of a political reset aimed at scrubbing away Biden-era decisions and putting a MAGA stamp on the SBA. Some of the new hurdles, they say, could actually add more risk for the SBA. WHY IT MATTERS 'The SBA reported a loss last year, the first in 13 years, and blamed it on looser credit standards put in place under the Biden Administration,' says Forbes reporter Brandon Kochkodin. 'Because of that, the new SBA is hitting rewind, going back to the way it did things prior to 2020. Getting an SBA loan is going to be a bit tougher, and in some cases impossible for non-permanent residents, but it's nothing the market hasn't seen before. Many dealmakers are hopeful that, in time, the new administration might rethink and restore some of what was worth keeping.' MORE SBA Loan Limit May Double To $10 Million, But Not For Every Small Business Breast cancer is the most commonly-diagnosed cancer in women. A new study from the American Association for Cancer Research shows that fewer women are dying from breast cancer in the U.S., though diagnoses are increasing and disparities persist: 3.41 per 100,000: The mortality rate for non-Hispanic Black women, compared to 1.16 among non-Hispanic white women 20 to 49: The age group in which breast cancer mortality fell significantly between 2010 and 2020 30% to 40%: How much more likely Black women are to be diagnosed at a later stage than white women In today's challenging labor market, many job seekers mass apply to as many positions as possible. But it's more important to strategically apply to openings that match your skills and career goals, tailoring your application to each role. Start by leveraging your network, attending industry events and reaching out to the hiring manager after submitting an application. Researchers have found a growing number of incidents of people trying to get too close to an animal that can be deadly, often holding a phone or camera. What animal are influencers posing with? A. Lion B. Shark C. Whale D. Elephant Check your answer. Thanks for reading! This edition of Forbes Daily was edited by Sarah Whitmire and Chris Dobstaff.
Forbes
17-05-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Meet The Saudi Real Estate Tycoon Partnering With The Trump Family
Donald Trump spoke at a Saudi-U.S. business investment forum in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, during the first official foreign trip of his second term. Last December, Eric Trump, Donald Trump's son and the executive vice president of his Trump Organization, traveled to Saudi Arabia to announce the launch of a new Trump-branded project with Saudi real estate developer Dar Global: the Trump Tower Jeddah, a 47-floor luxury residential skyscraper on Saudi Arabia's Red Sea coast that's slated to cost $530 million to build. Addressing the crowd gathered below a crystal chandelier in a cavernous hotel ballroom, he made sure to thank Yousef Al Shelash, the chairman and cofounder of Dar Global's parent company, Dar Al Arkan. 'He's a man that I have such a great relationship with. We're doing so many incredible projects all over the world,' Eric, 41, gushed of Al Shelash, who was seated at the same table. 'He's truly become a member of the Trump family and somebody I truly love dearly.' When Al Shelash took the stage three minutes later, he returned the sentiment. 'We began our relationship with the Trump Organization nearly a decade ago,' he said. 'The relationship did not start as a business relationship, but rather as a friendship, and it has continued to grow.' Among all the businessmen the Trump Organization is partnering with during Donald Trump's second White House term—from India to Indonesia to Vietnam—Al Shelash may have paid the U.S. president more than anyone else. His firm has announced at least six Trump-branded luxury real estate deals over the past three years, in Dubai, Oman, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. It's good money: Trump disclosed earning $7.85 million in licensing fees from a single Dar Global project in Oman between 2021 and early 2024, according to his two most recent financial disclosures. And with at least five other agreements set to begin, Trump is likely to earn millions more from licensing and management deals with Dar Al Arkan over the rest of his presidency. Little-known outside of his home country, Al Shelash has managed to stay out of the headlines even as he's agreed to shell out millions to partner with the most famous politician in the world. While not as rich as Trump, who has an estimated $5.5 billion fortune, Al Shelash is wealthy in his own right. Forbes estimates he's worth $900 million, largely concentrated in shares of Dar Al Arkan, which he cofounded in 1994 alongside his brothers and five other families, and then took public on the Saudi stock exchange in 2007. He also owns 6% of SHL Finance, a publicly traded Saudi mortgage lender; 30% of Quara Finance, a Saudi consumer financing outfit that went public in 2024; and a 5.5% stake in Alkhair Holding, a Bahrain-based investment bank. Dar Al Arkan recorded a $215 million net profit on $1 billion in revenues in 2024, up 32% and 39%, respectively, from a year earlier. A real estate developer that builds apartments, villas and residential communities, the bulk of Dar Al Arkan's 2024 revenue—nearly 83%—came from land sales, rather than from selling finished homes or apartments. While Al Shelash doesn't appear as a shareholder in the firm's public filings, a person familiar with the company told Forbes that he and members of the company's six founding families hold about 50% of the company, worth about $2.9 billion. A representative for Dar Al Arkan didn't make Al Shelash available for an interview but confirmed Al Shelash's net worth. The close ties to Trump—which Al Shelash, a month after being called a member of the first family, downplayed to a Saudi state-owned TV channel as 'purely a business relationship'—has already been good for Al Shelash. Shares of Dar Al Arkan have risen by 75% since the firm started rolling out more deals with the Trump Organization last July. All of those agreements have been made via Dar Global, the company's international arm, which it established in 2017 to develop real estate outside of Saudi Arabia and then took public on the London Stock Exchange in February 2023. (Dar Al Arkan still owns 88% of Dar Global's shares.) Stock in Dar Global has also seen a boost, jumping nearly 140% since last July despite disappointing earnings results in 2024. The firm's two biggest stock jumps, in December and April, coincided with announcements of the Trump deals in Jeddah and Doha, respectively. It's no surprise, then, that Al Shelash has been playing up his closeness with the 47th president on social media. In photographs posted to Dar Al Arkan's X and Instagram accounts, he smiled alongside Trump at a pre-inauguration event on January 19, and then appeared at the president's 'Make America Great Again Victory Rally' later the same night and at the Starlight inaugural ball the next day. Speaking with CNBC Arabia at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland the following week, he sounded an optimistic tone about Trump's second term, saying, 'We hope that this change in administration will bring stability to the region and the world.' Born in 1967 in Saudi Arabia, Al Shelash's early life remains a mystery. He graduated from Imam Muhammad Ibn Saud Islamic University in Riyadh with a bachelor's in Islamic law in 1990, then obtained a master's in law from the Institute of Public Administration in Riyadh two years later. In 1994, when he was 27 years old, he cofounded Dar Al Arkan with his brothers and five other families, the Al Hethlouls, the Al Roumis, the Al Jarallahs, the Al Qasems and the Al Babtains. By 2000, Al Shelash owned 23.5% of the business, making him the joint largest shareholder. In the firm's early years, it focused on buying up large plots of undeveloped land in central Saudi Arabia, building basic utilities including water, sewage, electricity, paved roads and sidewalks, and then selling it to other investors and developers. In the early 2000s, it expanded to the western and eastern regions of the country and slowly started developing residential units. In 2004, the six families brought 60 new stockholders into Dar Al Arkan by selling new shares—about 19% of the company—for roughly $1.1 billion, diluting Al Shelash's direct stake to 9% and valuing the firm at $1.4 billion. That same year, Al Shelash and his Dar Al Arkan cofounders also established an investment bank named Alkhair Holding—then known as Unicorn Investment Bank—in Bahrain with $111 million in initial capital. It set up offices in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and Chicago, investing in a portfolio of assisted living facilities in California. 'They're land traders. Their idea is to buy land outside of the city's boundaries, and eventually the city will grow and there will be land appreciation,' says a person familiar with Dar Al Arkan's management. 'It seems that their customers are royals or ruling family members, or just regular rich Saudis who want to buy land. They buy these plots of land from these families and then wait for years until the infrastructure reaches those plots and then sell them at a profit.' Dar Al Arkan's first major foray into homebuilding came in 2006 with the Al Qasr project, a master-planned residential community with a shopping mall north of Riyadh. The next year the firm went public on the Saudi stock exchange at an $8.1 billion valuation. Al Shelash sold $110 million worth of shares and held onto an 8% stake worth $630 million after the listing. He'd already pocketed an estimated $77 million in dividends over the previous two years, giving him an estimated net worth of more than $800 million at the time. (He hasn't directly owned any shares since 2019, according to the firm's filings.) Meanwhile, Al Shelash was further expanding his empire through investment bank Alkhair, putting money into businesses in Jordan, Kuwait, Malaysia, Pakistan, Turkey and the U.S., including a semiconductor design firm based in Silicon Valley. By 2007, Alkhair had $363 million in assets under management and had also expanded its investment banking business—all while growing more intertwined with Dar Al Arkan. Alkhair owned $42 million worth of Dar Al Arkan stock at the time and also acted as the joint manager, underwriter and bookrunner for two sukuks—Islamic financial certificates similar to bonds—that Dar Al Arkan raised in 2007 with a total value of $1.6 billion. Al Shelash also ventured into mortgage lending, setting up SHL Finance the same year with his fellow Dar Al Arkan cofounders—plus outside investors including Arab National Bank and the International Finance Corporation—to take advantage of the Saudi government's move to expand access to mortgages in a country where only about 2% of homes were purchased with mortgages at the time. Then the global financial crisis hit. Dar Al Arkan's stock plummeted by nearly 50% between September and November 2008. By October 2011, shares were 84% below their 2008 peak and the firm faced a crash crunch, with $1.3 billion in debt due in 2012. (Though the company still began work on its largest project yet, Shams Ar Riyadh, a 1,235-acre development with villas and commercial buildings that's still in the works today.) Dar Al Arkan's headquarters in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. 'The global financial crisis of 2008 and the three years that followed had a significant impact on the decline of Dar Al Arkan's shares,' a representative for Dar Al Arkan told Forbes. 'This forced [Al Shelash] to sell many investments and repay outstanding loans.' Things got worse in 2012. An anonymous website, allegedly set up by the former CEO of Alkhair with the help of a business investigation firm, claimed that Al Shelash and the firm's founding shareholders used a web of companies—including Alkhair Holding—to invest in Dar Al Arkan's sukuk issuance, mask their ownership of Dar Al Arkan's shares and move funds between companies they controlled. Dar Al Arkan denied the allegations and then sued the former CEO and the business investigation firm in London's High Court. Dar Al Arkan repaid its debt in 2012 and the two sides settled the lawsuit in 2015, with the company noting that the 'allegations were not proven and the claims were settled and/or abandoned.' But Dar Al Arkan's shares continued to crumble, reaching a low of 4.3 Saudi riyals ($1.15) per share in February 2016—92% below their IPO price. The company managed to turn the tide in 2017, growing revenue by 153% to $1.3 billion by stepping up its land sales, and the stock started to recover. Dar Al Arkan has continued to tap international investors for financing in recent years, but the firm now enjoys a more stable reputation. Moody's analysts who cover its debt wrote in March that the firm's high-value land bank, projected cash flow and cash reserves of $1.8 billion meant it could 'comfortably cover' its short-term debt and other capital needs. Meanwhile, Alkhair Holding has reduced in scope, scaling back its investment banking activities and selling most of its investments, save for a warehouse provider in Jordan and a financial services firm offering Sharia-compliant investment products in Saudi Arabia. In 2017, Al Shelash saw an opportunity to grow the business outside of Saudi Arabia. Dar Al Arkan announced its first foreign development, a 34-story luxury residential tower in Dubai, and also set up Dar Global to target the luxury apartments business in Dubai—a departure from the land sales the firm had long relied on in Saudi Arabia. The company also hired Ziad El Chaar, the former CEO of Emirati billionaire Hussain Sajwani's Dubai-based developer DAMAC Properties, to become Dar Global's CEO. While working for Sajwani, El Chaar was the architect of several deals between DAMAC and the Trump Organization, including a Trump-branded complex with a 500-acre golf course and villas that opened a month after Trump's first inauguration in 2017. El Chaar soon borrowed a page from his own playbook, with Dar Global announcing its first deal with the Trump Organization in March 2022 in Oman. Located on land owned by a company controlled by Oman's Ministry of Tourism, Dar Global is building a 140-room, 5-star hotel and an 18-hole golf course with luxury villas, all set to open in December 2028. The Trump Organization will also manage the hotel and the golf club for 30 years from the date they open, ensuring a steady stream of management fees for the president and his family. At the same time, Al Shelash was tying Dar Al Arkan closer to Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, who rose to power in 2015 and announced his Vision 2030 program to modernize Saudi Arabia a year later. In its annual reports, the firm committed to achieving the goals of Vision 2030, from building a "vibrant society" to fostering an "ambitious nation." But that doesn't seem to have helped it win much favor with the government: In late 2022, Saudi authorities imposed an embargo on large parts of Dar Al Arkan's Shams Ar Riyadh project because the land was close to New Murabba, a massive new development on 4,700 acres that was unveiled by the crown prince. That same year, the crown prince estimated that Saudi Arabia would need more than 4 million residential units over the next 10 years. Yet despite its push to build more homes and apartments, Dar Al Arkan has been overtaken by much newer entrants to the Saudi real estate market. Since its inception in 1994, Dar Al Arkan has only delivered about 15,000 units—less than the 16,000 sold by rival firm Retal since it was founded in 2012. 'It's very unusual,' says the person familiar with Dar Al Arkan. 'If you're the biggest developer, you've got this huge land bank and there's this supply shortage, why aren't you able to build homes and sell?' Al Shelash continued to focus his attention overseas. When he took Dar Global public on the London stock exchange in February 2023, it had 11 developments in the works in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Dubai, Qatar, Spain, the U.K. and Oman, including the Trump project in Muscat. The IPO raised $72 million, valuing the company at around $600 million. Then—last July, as Trump was steaming toward his election victory—Dar Global started rolling out a string of Trump-branded developments. First came the Trump Tower Jeddah and a luxury skyscraper and hotel in Dubai, followed by the announcement of two projects in Riyadh in December. Four months later, Dar Global announced an agreement with Qatari Diar, a real estate firm owned by Qatar's sovereign wealth fund, for a Trump-branded luxury development with an 18-hole golf course, golf club and villas on a 195-acre plot of land in Qatar. That marked the sixth publicly announced real estate project between the Trump Organization and Dar Al Arkan, and the first to be unveiled after Trump returned to the White House in January. Dar Global had a rough 2024, with net profits falling by 82% to $15 million and revenue slumping by 33% to $240 million. The partnerships with Trump were a bright spot, per Al Shelash, who touted how the firm "enhanced [its] collaboration with the Trump Organization' in his 2024 letter to Dar Al Arkan's shareholders. And back home in Saudi Arabia, the government lifted its embargo on Shams Ar Riyadh and returned ownership of those land plots to Dar Al Arkan. Dar Global plans to keep growing its global footprint, with developments in the works in the Maldives and Morocco. It's not done partnering with the Trumps, either: Al Shelash told CNBC Arabia in January that Dar Global was working with the Trump Organization on a seventh project, in Greece, that has not been formally announced. Expanding to the U.S. is also on the cards: 'We have studied several projects in New York, Miami and possibly Los Angeles,' Al Shelash told Al Arabiya Business in January. It's unclear whether the U.S. developments will involve the president. In Trump's first term, the Trump Organization pledged not to enter any new foreign deals while he was in office. This time around, the company's ethics plan bars direct deals with foreign governments—but not with foreign companies. Yet the partnerships with Dar Global in Oman and Qatar, where state-owned companies own the land that the Trump-branded properties will be built on, appear to violate the pledge Trump made. A representative for the Trump Organization did not respond to a request for comment. 'The acceleration of new foreign deals in the first several months of this presidency is astounding,' says Walker Davis, deputy research director at watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. 'It's all out in the open now. It's no holds barred with this Trump administration and conflicts.' Trump, for his part, seems excited about the wave of new construction sweeping through the region. 'The towers that I see rising [are] amazing,' he said in a speech at a U.S.-Saudi investment conference in Riyadh on Tuesday, part of the first official foreign trip of his second term. Then he listed some examples—nearly all of them cities where he's building towers and golf courses with Al Shelash. 'In places like Dubai and Abu Dhabi, Doha, Muscat, the transformations have been unbelievably remarkable.'
Arabian Business
31-01-2025
- Business
- Arabian Business
Yousef Al Shelash's expansion strategies in UAE and beyond
Yousef Al Shelash, the chairman of Dar Al Arkan, has transformed the Saudi-based real estate developer into a force in the luxury property market. With major developments planned in the UAE and other regions, Yousef Al Shelash is working to expand Dar Al Arkan's position in luxury real estate. The UAE plays a role in this vision of expansion. Known for its robust real estate market and a strong demand for high-end developments, cities such as Dubai and Abu Dhabi provide natural fits for Dar Al Arkan's ambitious growth plans. Several high-profile projects have already been completed in Dubai, including the W Residences Dubai – Downtown and Urban Oasis by Missoni, Dar Arkan is preparing to establish a greater presence in Abu Dhabi, thereby targeting a market that values the luxury and innovation of modern real estate. Capitalising on opportunities Dar Al Arkan's upcoming residential project in Abu Dhabi represents a new step in real estate opportunities. The UAE capital has become a primary destination for international real estate, as an increasing demand for luxury properties has been driven by global investors and other affluent residents. Abu Dhabi–which is known for its modern infrastructure and world-class cultural landmarks–provides an ideal setting for anyone looking to gain entry into this competitive market. While details of the project have not yet been disclosed, Dar Al Arkan has shown a commitment to replicating successes in other regions by delivering developments that focus on design excellence, exclusivity, and functionality. Building on success in Dubai Dubai has proven to be a successful market for Dar Al Arkan. With projects such as the W Residences Dubai, the company has established itself as a notable presence in the city's luxury real estate sector. These developments, which are quickly becoming more prominent, have set new standards for high-end and luxury living, which combine contemporary design with exclusivity that appeals to Dubai's affluent audience. The success of such projects demonstrates Yousef Al Shelash's ability to align the company's developments with the demands of the market. Through partnerships with globally recognised brands, Dar Al Arkan has worked to position itself as a developer that delivers quality and sophistication. A plan to expand While the UAE remains a primary focus for the company, Dar Al Arkan's expansion has worked to launch several high-profile projects in the Middle East, including Aida overlooking the Sea of Oman and Les Vagues by Elie Saab in Qatar. These types of developments highlight the company's capabilities of extending its offerings in diverse markets while maintaining a reputation for delivering high quality. Dar Al Arkan's influence in international markets also includes the Sidra project in Bosnia, which marks the company's first major venture into Europe. Spanning 500,000 square meters, Sidra is being designed as a gated community surrounded by native forests. The development works to blend natural surroundings with modern amenities, which include residential villas, shops, restaurants, and a five-star hotel. Looking ahead With new residential projects planned for Abu Dhabi, Dar Al Arkan looks to continue its projects both within the UAE and outside of it as well. The company's focus remains on prime locations, strategic partnerships, and excellence in execution will remain crucial to its growth in the coming years.
