Bahrain: An Interview with Mona Almoayyed of Leading Conglomerate Y K Almoayyed and Sons

Interview with Mona Almoayyed, Managing Director of Y. K. Almoayyed & Sons

What are the competitive advantages of Y. K. Almoayyed & Sons? How does the Group distinguish itself from the rest of the competition?

Our biggest advantage is that we are a very old conglomerate. We were established in 1940 by my late father. As of today, we have 7,000 employees in the whole Group. We are a very diversified company. We are into construction with National Concrete, retail where we do automobile, electronics, sanitary wares, fire and safety systems, etc. Our biggest advantage is that we are a very established company so we have no problem with liquidity. We rarely borrow from the banks; we just work with our own money. We are a family business and the biggest advantage of that is we do not look at the profit at the end of the year; rather, we look at the long term profit of the company. With public companies, you find that they just need to show to the shareholders that they are making big profit. But with us, we do not have to worry about shareholders. We are all family members. Some years it is bad and some years it is good. The good years cover for the bad years.

How would you assess the outcome of 2020 for the Group?

We are always interested in partnership. If we have the right opportunities, we would love to join in with investors from outside because they have the knowhow which we do not have. For example, to start anything which is not available in our part of the world would be very beneficial for us.

It has been a very tough year. The whole world suffered, and we suffered as well. Our business was closed completely for three months – no showrooms, nothing. We were at a standstill. But, we were very lucky because the government of Bahrain compensated us for all the salaries of the Bahrainis so that we do not let anyone go. With our expatriates, they were very understanding and we managed to at least break even, to make ends meet. And so, it was not as bad as we thought it would be. We ended up about 40% less than the year before. Our sales were down, our revenue was down, but we managed to do well with other things. On the construction side, National Concrete was down by about 10% to 15%. Retail was down by 50%. What is good about our businesses is that we are very diversified – some parts go down and some parts go up. In the end, as long as we can run the business, even with not too much profit, we can manage. We hope that the future is coming and that it will be better. The government of Bahrain also helped us with the electricity, with all the fees, with bringing foreign workers. The government was very generous with us. I did not see this happening in any Gulf states where we have businesses. Even in Saudi Arabia, we did not see the same level of support as we got in Bahrain. I am very thankful to the government. My husband also is a businessman. He has businesses in Saudi, Dubai, and Kuwait. For example, during COVID, those businesses did not get salary payment or rent deduction as much as we did in Bahrain. In Bahrain, we have the Almoayyed Tower and we gave them a deduction of two or three months during COVID. In terms of helping businesses, we have this need and it is our nature.

Have you restructured or adapted your business in response to these challenges?

What we learned from COVID is that we became more digital and we have virtual showrooms now for automobiles in all our branches. We are trying to sell online. We hardly use any papers now. We are moving with the times and we became even closer to our customers. We now service our customers at their homes as well. If they need it, we pick up their cars for service and we drop off their cars. We have so many different branches for our service. We used to have only one or two only five years ago. Nowadays, we have at least seven or eight service centers for the customer to help them and to be there when they need us. Our customer satisfaction has been very good. Also, every three months we do a balance scorecard. We evaluate all our businesses in terms of customer satisfaction, profitability, internal progress, valuing our employees. If the managers are doing well, we pay them bonuses and reward them for their work. Our employees are very happy and satisfied and for our customers, I hope they are happy.

Are you interested in attracting global investors?

Yes, of course. We are always interested in partnership. If we have the right opportunities, we would love to join in with investors from outside because they have the knowhow which we do not have. For example, to start anything which is not available in our part of the world would be very beneficial for us. But we need the right investors. We had a few opportunities, we studied them, and some of them were doing very well, but others, if we find that it is not profitable, we are very quick at closing down things. We do not play in things that drain us of liquid and cash.

Is there any field (specific sectors, specific technology, etc.) where you are looking to boost yourself and your business?

We are always on the lookout for new ideas, new investments, new investors. For example, with solar energy we have been looking to different companies, different partners. We are working on all fronts for anything which is profitable and we will be happy to join.

How do you see the development of Y. K. Almoayyed & Sons in the future, three to five years’ time, with the new generation, the new members of the family?

What makes me happy is that I feel the Group is coming into a transition of handing the business to the third generation because our children now have reached the age between 30 to 50. Before COVID last year, about 20 of them did a very useful course in Paris about how to revamp family businesses and they have brought all their knowledge to us now. We are in the stage of revamping our charter, our committees of corporate governance, committees of remuneration, and we have many committees for the new generation for charity. All these committees helped to revamp the company. Our reputation is talked about all over Bahrain and worldwide because we are very active in the charity side. We have spent a lot of money on building a center for dialysis, for drug and alcohol rehabilitation. We spend a part of our profit every year on charity. We are getting our younger generation involved in this charity organization. We are hoping to expand outside Bahrain to bring new venture and new investment. That is what is good about family businesses – they all work together and they love each other. We work with love, not with competition and hatred. That is why we have a committee for misunderstanding. We are very happy and we are growing steadily.

What is your involvement in women’s causes in Bahrain? What is the state of women in Bahrain?

Being in the Shura Council since 2018, I have come across many areas where we are working to help women with legislation. There is a committee in the Shura for women and children and they are very active and they always keep bringing new legislation for equality for women, for maternity leave, for more rights for women, and we keep asking for more rights for children. In Bahrain, we have a very good system of getting the private sector to work with the government on these social issues for children and women. With the Shura Council I am very involved with migrant workers because in the Committee of Human Rights we always talk about suicide problems with migrant workers, the bad living standards of the migrants, and we are trying to bring more laws to improve the standard of living of the migrant workers. Also, in the Shura, I opened the window to help look after the environment. With the Environment Committee, we are looking at the temperatures, the cleanliness of the air, why there are less fish now than before and whether it is because the sea is polluted. We always have Zoom meetings with officials. Also, I am very close with the Bahrain Businesswomen’s Society and they are very active. We now have three women in the Chamber of Commerce, there are Ministers who are women, and so many women in the top positions in the country now. There is no ceiling like there used to be before. Women are promoted and they are looked after and we thank our leadership for promoting women and especially His Majesty, the King, who really believes in women’s rights and human rights.

How is Bahrain on these points compared to the rest of the GCC?

I am very sure that Bahrain is more advanced with human rights. For example, migrant worker societies are not available in any GCC countries. In Bahrain, we have two or three and we have so many societies for human rights. When the international human rights people come to Bahrain and visit the prisons, they write their reports about how well they are treated. For punishment, we have started not to punish people by prison, but by working as a substitute to punishment, which is very advanced for Bahrain. For example, there was a case in Bahrain where a lawyer did not follow the rules for the COVID quarantine. So, her punishment was that they put her as an operator rather than in prison. This is very good for humans when they are punished by doing something and it is more effective than being in prison.

Are you active in environmental works? How does Bahrain distinguish itself on this?

The air in Bahrain is quite polluted. Now there is the Committee for Environments and they have very advanced equipment to measure the purity of the air. They have done lots of work to purify the air. For example, now instead of the air from factories going in the environment and the surrounding area, it goes through certain machines to purify the air before it goes out. There was a small lake that was very polluted because the opening and the going out of the flow of the water was not very big. That caused the water to stagnate and all the fish to die. They have a big project this year to enlarge the opening. I am happy to see lots of improvements in Bahrain and finding solutions for all the problems.

Are there any big events coming up this year for Bahrain?

At the Shura Council, we did the budget for 21 and 22. I was really happy and impressed to see that so much of the budget is going to be spent on the infrastructure of Bahrain – lots of new roads, building new towns all over Bahrain, houses for the middle class, lots of highways, and lots of islands. With COVID and the constraint on money, they did not reduce the benefits which the people receive. All Bahrainis get special money – if their salaries are below certain limit they get help from the government to improve their standard of living. We get subsidized on petrol and food. The government did not reduce any of these benefits. On the contrary, they increased the benefits and they increased the borrowing. I hope after COVID the main thing that they are trying to do with the new budget is to find a new source of income other than petrol and get revenue from other factories, from other businesses, from attracting banks to come to Bahrain, attracting factories to start in Bahrain. Hopefully, businesses will prosper after COVID.

Being part of the family company, you obviously have been working with the company for a very long time in very different aspects and arms everywhere. You are very involved, but you also have this other side outside of business doing women’s rights, migrants’ rights and workers’ rights. There are so many things that you are active in. What is your inspiration? What is your drive?

I love my work. I am very much a family person. I love the people around me. When you work sincerely with love and heart, you care about others. Even in our business, when you care about your employees, they work harder for you. I really work and I really give as much as I can and I do not expect much. What drives me is success, but not money terms, more in satisfaction that I want to make the world a better place. That is why I really care about the environment and I care about improving the standard of living. This is my personality. Our family started from my father and mother. There are six of us and we are all the same. We all work for philanthropy. What is surprising me is that the third generation is even more active than all of us. They really just love to help others. This is just the spirit that we have in Bahrain. I am really happy and proud of it. When we call them to work in the charity committee, they are very happy. When we tell them come and work for the business they say it’s boring. They are not into money and making money. They prefer to work for free, which is a good sign. We have to get the professional managers. We are lucky that all our businesses have very professional managers who are rewarded by bonuses and they are very happy with us. In fact, our CEO came in the Forbes list as number 50. We are happy to employ professional people to run the business professionally.

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