KOCHI: Yusuffali M A, owner of the Lulu Group empire, heads the list of most powerful Indians in the UAE. Yusuffali, the brain behind the retail giant which raked in $6.2 billion in revenue from its operations in nine countries, was ranked by Deloitte as one of the 50 fastest growing retailers in the world last year. Dr Shamsheer Vayalil, the founder of VPS Healthcare, who is Yusuffali’s son-in-law, is ranked the fourth powerful Indian in the list. Lulu Group’s vast expansion has seen it sign an MOU with the Malaysian Government for setting up hypermarkets there. Besides, it has indicated plans for multiple hypermarkets in Indonesia.
While he is well known for his retail businesses, earlier this month Yusuff Ali received the Queen’s Award for Enterprise from Queen Elizabeth II for his Birmingham-based food processing plant’s role in boosting the UK’s position as an investor-friendly destination, said a release.
Y International, a subsidiary of the group, opened its first food processing and logistics centre in the US. The export centre will purchase, process, relabel and export a variety of supermarket products made in the US. It expects to more than double its existing workforce within a year, it said.