Mahesh "Micky" Jagtiani: Retail Pasha of the Middle-East

Soon after he landed in Delhi 16 hours after he first boarded a flight from Dubai, Mahesh "Micky" Jagtiani hopped into a waiting car and put himself through another half-hour ride on the congested NH-8 to his store in Gurgaon. There, Jagtiani-a short, avuncular-looking man, with a salt-n-pepper French beard, and kind eyes-spent an hour checking out all the sections in the three-storied departmental store, watching customers as they made the most of the store-wide sale.

That a jet-lagged man (his flight from Mumbai was first diverted to Ahmedabad and back to Mumbai, before it managed to land in Delhi after the capital's surprise fog cleared in the afternoon that day) would want to proceed on a store tour rather than stretch himself out in his hotel room did not surprise the organisers of a retail summit in New Delhi-the prime beneficiaries of his visit-and certainly not Jagtiani's staff or friends. As it happened, his reputation had preceded him. No sooner had he finished his speech at the retail do than a crowd mobbed him. Jagtiani, who wasn't expecting such a response and hence wasn't carrying enough business cards, seemed embarrassed by the attention. "I don't know why all these people want to meet me," he remarked, looking genuinely surprised.

The answer should be obvious. Thirty years after he landed up in Bahrain as a 22-year-old with $5,000 in his pocket to open a shop, the Dubai-based CEO of Landmark group has built himself one the largest and most profitable retail chains in the Middle East, with more than 280 stores, 6,000 employees and an estimated $650 million (Rs 2,990 crore) in revenues (since the group is privately-held, actual numbers are not publicly available). His retail operations (See Micky's Retail Empire) span the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, and India, and include a wide variety of formats-departmental stores to baby products to footwear. Some reckon that had Jagtiani's group been listed in a country like, say, the UK, he would be the seventh richest Asian in the country. Not bad for a man who, self-admittedly, grew up as a boy with "two left feet" and who "never could get anything right".

Cautious Builder

Today, that may seem like a good self-deprecating joke, but 30 years ago Jagtiani-Micky to senior colleagues and Mr. Micky to the coffee boy and other juniors-probably meant it. Soon after he arrived in Bahrain, his brother, a year older to him, died. His father, who represented foreign companies in the Middle East, and mother (who was Dubai's first business woman) also died in quick succession. The deaths profoundly impacted Jagtiani. Beginning his teenage years, he had been living a life of extremes. He was an alcoholic ("I used to drink a bottle of whisky every day"), smoked four packets of cigarettes a day, and gambled. Following his schooling in Mumbai and Lebanon, Jagtiani had been sent to London by his father to get a degree in accounting. But he wasn't interested in education, and ended up driving a taxi instead before moving to Bahrain.

When he opened the first 5,000-sq ft Baby Shop in Bahrain, Jagtiani, along with his only employee, would unload cartons, manage the display, and even mop the floor. Along the way, as he diversified into newer formats and opened more stores, he developed a unique retail philosophy that still pervades his tightly-run set up. For instance, he hates hiring people who are "clever" (the word is his own) because he believes they would never like to get their hands dirty unloading cartons or waiting upon customers. And to him, retail is all about getting your hands dirty. If you haven't spent time on the shop floor, you can't possibly hope to rise in Landmark. "Micky's CEOs (business heads) are all hands-on people," says Arvind Singhal, Chairman, KSA Technopak, who wooed Jagtiani over three years to speak at the retail summit.

Slow and Steady: In the last five years, Jagtiani's Life Style has opened seven stores in all the major metros

While Jagtiani likes to call retail a science, he himself has let his gut feel dictate his moves. In other words, he's kept his eye on the consumer needs. For example, Landmark was the first to identify baby products (with Baby Shop) as a big opportunity in the UAE, simply because it had a large population of Asian expats, who tend to spend more on children than European or American expats. Similarly, Landmark followed Ikea into the home furniture and furnishing space with Home Centre, but unlike Ikea decided to price itself aggressively. Says Shavak Srivastava, a Dubai-based retail consultant: "One of the most important things in retail is having a finger on the consumer pulse, and Micky seems to know his consumers better than most."

Jagtiani's own predilections have imparted certain peculiarities to the retail group. For example, Jagtiani loves hiring chartered accountants. According to him, not only are they good with numbers, but they keep a low profile and are not overly ambitious. (As an aside, he says the bias could also be because he himself could never become an accountant.) The media-shy Jagtiani (a Google search for Micky Jagtiani throws up just three pages, with references but no profile) is passionate about work, putting in 14 hours even today. While retail is his first love, he is into several other businesses, and is said to be toying with the idea of building the largest budget hotel in Dubai with 1,200 rooms.

Interestingly, though, Jagtiani's success outside the Middle East has been mixed. For instance, he bought the Ciro Citterio chain in the UK in 2001, but ended up losing money. Last year alone, the chain racked up £10 million in losses. It is now owned by Hilco Trading, a retail turnaround specialist. Even in India, at least so far, Jagtiani has been cautious. The only format he has brought in is the departmental store Life Style, which, five years after it entered the country, has only seven stores. Besides, none of Landmark's other successful formats (Home Centre or Baby Shop) has been brought in. It is, however, possible that they make a debut sometime in the future.

The Philanthropist

Despite his fabulous wealth, Jagtiani says, he's a man of frugal habits. Until last year, the only property he owned anywhere in the world, he says, was a one-bedroom apartment in Bandra left to him by his father. Now though, helped by expat-friendly property ownership rules in the Middle East, he has bought "a piece of land" in Dubai where he's built a home for his wife of 25 years. He says the only key he has in his life is his car key, because he doesn't believe in locking his office. And until recently he would only fly coach, and when in London, would tube it, and not think twice about making his own bed or washing dishes. Says Ishwar Chugani, Executive Director, Giordano Fashion (Middle East): "Success hasn't changed Micky at all in the last 10 years. He's still humble and low profile."

Retail Enigma: Jagtiani's rare public appearance in India draws a huge-crowd

So what explains his Mercedes Benz, his Tag Heur wristwatch, or the Versace belt and designer suits? Jagtiani's answer: It's a short cut to acceptance among those (primarily business associates) who don't know him well enough. Otherwise, the man, who has embraced Buddhism and has 55 statues of Buddha at home, is happy walking his stores, or dabbling in alternative medicine, and doing social work. Sometime soon in the future, Jagtiani, who has three children, wants to hand over the group to a professional (his eldest daughter is working for a retail chain in Hong Kong and wife Renuka heads Splash Concept, besides overseeing some part of the sourcing) and plunge headlong into social work in India.

Despite the fact that he hasn't spent much time in India, Jagtiani is inordinately fond of the country. He already runs an orphanage and an old age home in Chennai called Our Home, which also offers a computer literacy programme for slum children. Whenever he is in Chennai, Jagtiani makes it a point to sleepover at least one night at Our Home. His logic: If the facilities aren't good enough for him, they aren't good enough for the others. There's lots more that Jagtiani wants to do in the area of social work. "I'll fund anybody who can start a non-political mass movement in the country," he says. But the next moment when the Chairman of an American architectural firm pulls Jagtiani out of our meeting for a quick word, he is back to business, asking the American to send him samples of the firm's work and a man to Dubai for preliminary discussions.

No doubt, it's this ability to effortlessly switch hats that makes Jagtiani what he is: A wildly successful retailer, but also the business' best kept secret. As he concludes our late evening meeting and makes his way to a waiting Opel Astra to head for yet another one, he says: "I don't want to die with any money in my name."

'Guess you can be dismissive of wealth, when you are the Middle East's most profitable retailer.