The "Pimp my Ride" man

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A sparkle of light from a building ahead of me catches my eye; as I approach the hum of electric doors whirring into action intensifies; the sparkle suddenly turns into bright sunlight reflected off a car door; a brilliant sea of red flows towards me; the Ferrari F340's engine booms across the street, making ordinary cars around it shudder with fear - I've made it to the home of Octane, future home to West Coast Customs, the men behind MTV's hit show ‘Pimp my Ride', and the man who is bringing the customised fashion to vehicles in the Middle East, Mohammed Al Ghussein.

"It's not mine," he says taking a few minutes to look the Italian supercar up and down. "But I wish it was," he adds saying his car is parked in the sand "out the back".

Al Ghussein, CEO of the family investment company and his own baby Atlas Financial Services, is a man with a talent - a talent in spotting niches as well as underperforming or unexploited companies and sectors and bringing them back into the limelight, into the forefront of the business world.

A year after graduating in 2000 from a US university, he decided to take the 25 year-old family business in a different direction. Originally set up by his father in 1985 as a property investment business, he knew he was in the middle of something big. The rise of the Gulf, its talent and sprouting companies was there to be exploited, taken over, moulded and put back into shape, developed even further and then sold at the peak of their prowess.

But despite Al Ghussein's enthusiasm and newfound passion for everything and anything automotive, business hasn't all been as glamorous as the recent US$5m, 10-year master franchise for the Middle East for West Coast Customs. Although at the moment, that's the only thing on the young business leader's mind.

"Ryan, West Coast's CEO, and Big Dane, big in name and nature, will be down in Dubai for the West Coast concert on November 22. We can't wait to have them here. It will really shake things up in the market."

Al Ghussein has just sold off one of his most short-term but equally most profitable businesses - a former Egyptian cutlery manufacturing plant, the first of its kind in the Middle East, which he took from its poor performing market to Dubai where it flourished.

"We acquire companies either locally or from abroad, take over the management and run them, restructure the management and then sell them back within three to four years. We have two strategies, short and long-term depending on the opportunity. "We shipped [the cutlery company] here to Dubai four years ago and a few weeks ago we finalised the deal to sell it off. We bought it for US$3.2m and are selling it for US$9.5m. The difference was that the plant in Egypt wasn't manufacturing well because of its location. We brought it over here to Jebel Ali, opened up a lot of opportunities in the GCC and bang, there you go, a successful business."

Al Ghussein is a master at eyeing a gap in the market. Not many people would pour a family's wealth into a factory that makes knives and forks; however, the boom in the hotel industry had reached such a high with five-star hotels and restaurants crying out for essential materials, that he tripled the company's revenues in four years. "It was a great opportunity for a bigger investment firm to invest in an industry that was also related to hotels. And I went for it. I'm glad I did," he says in his usual understated fashion.

But if you thought eating implements weren't exciting, think again. Another of Al Ghussein's success spots was in wet wipes. "Baby wipes, if you want to get technical," he says pretending to be an expert in the field of toddler hygiene. "I'm not an expert," he laughs, "but we try and acquire the right people to run these companies. We don't manage them hands on. I don't know much about wet wipes or cutlery. When we acquire these companies we try to get the right people to run them. They report to us on a weekly basis to make sure everything is running along the lines of the strategy we have in mind."

But once again, a niche investment has paid off. Although he still has the wet wipes business on his books, and his competitors' factory on the opposite side of Sheikh Zayed Road in Dubai, the company still returns a tidy sum. "We do private labelling for several third party manufacturers like Spinneys and Union Co-Op that don't have their own brand and that have their own cheaper brands. Sometimes you can't afford to pay for the high-end brands. The components are the same, it's all about lotion and we use the same that others use anyway."

Al Ghussein, his father and the family business, have now gained a solid reputation for "great investments", according to Mohammed. But they are "carefully considered and never rushed into," he adds.

Certain investments, however, take a different turn and produce much slower returns, or none at all. When this happens, Al Ghussein employs the ‘get out quick' method. "We've acquired a few smaller companies in trading and pharmaceutical companies and then sold out within two years. The margins weren't that great so we sold out early because we had a lot of competition here in the region.

"We look into a lot of projects every year, about 20, and we get a lot of proposals from parties that are interested in either selling or finding investors, but we might only take one or two because we see greater potential in those."

Two of those businesses are Octane and West Coast Customs - both are at the top of his priority list, and according to Al Ghussein, causing great waves within the automotive world.

"We now have a property division that my father looks after, a retail division that is investing in franchises such as London toy store Hamleys which is coming to Dubai in 2009, a financial services arm and now an automotive section.

"The business is blossoming at just the right pace. But West Coast's reputation as a brand and its potential as a company is the most exciting thing we've ever done."

Simply put West Coast, a group of now famous, and physically beefed up mechanics, customise cars. Or, in street slang, ‘pimp up' people's rides.

"They can practically do anything to your car," one of Octane's chief mechanics tells me as we stand chatting next to a pre-pimped orange US ‘muscle car', with its bonnet lifted, mega engine showing and chrome gleaming.

Despite West Coast's warehouse still being worked on a street away from Octane and officially being launched at the end of September, Al Ghussein and his team have already completed their first customised car, a Range Rover sport.

"We were ready to ship it a few weeks ago but the customer told us to tweak the fenders," he says, unable to reveal who the mystery Sheikh is who is willing to have his car flown over to London in time for his summer holiday break. The car itself is expensive but add to that DVD players, plasma screens and diamond encrusted extras and you have as seriously pricey moving piece of art.

"It looks incredible," he beams. Land Rover [Ford] have seen it and has now asked us whether we can supply them with custom kits for their other models."

Once operational West Coast Customs, its two US$3000 a week earning expert mechanics, and a small team of trainees will customise three to four cars a month. This may seem minor but a ‘pimped up' vehicle can cost two to three times more than the actual car itself, with the customisation process fetching between US$20,000 and US$300,000.

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