Flourishing in adversity

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Arabtec CFO Ziad Makhzoumi talks to Damian Reilly about the economic forecasts and adverse publicity at the hands of the BBC.

Ziad Makhzoumi, Arabtec’s chief financial officer, is an ordered man in a chaotic industry.

At precisely the agreed time of meeting, nine o’clock on a hot Monday morning, he seems to materialise out of thin air into the reception of Arabtec’s headquarters in Dubai. He is dressed immaculately, and offers stiff handshakes, and stiffer smiles. Makhzoumi carries the old world air of the gentleman about him — unusual in this region — and so when he offers to mug as King Kong atop a scale replica of the Burj Dubai for CEO Middle East’s photographer, it is as disarming as it is funny.

Sitting on the sofa in his office, Makhzoumi is open and unflustered as he politely answers our questions, which is again disarming. After all, senior members of staff at Arabtec would have every right to be as wary of the media as they would be ebola. The company, which employs in the region of 70,000 people and is the largest construction and engineering company in the Middle East, has had a torrid time at the hands of the international media in 2009. The BBC, in particular, has attacked the company for its perceived treatment of labourers, and even devoted an entire episode of its flagship documentary programme Panorama to an undercover investigation of an Arabtec labour camp.

Treated in a bad light

Arabtec maintained throughout the furore they had been treated very badly, that they were shown in the worst possible light by the BBC, and that the so-called investigation into the labour camp — which has since been shut down — was highly misleading. But while the storm of public opinion raged, Arabtec’s share price tracked upwards.

That’s hardly surprising; last year the company delivered AED9.6bn of work, after Makhzoumi had forecast it would deliver AED8.5bn. This year, again, Makhzoumi has forecast AED8.5bn of work, credit crunch be damned.

“I think we are doing well considering the market,” he says with a wry smile. And that market, he thinks, is not as dependent on the fortunes of the rest of the world’s economies as some people would have you believe. For Makhzoumi, it is all about the oil price.

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