Having made his money setting up one of India’s biggest transport and logistics conglomerates, Asgar Shakoor Patel travelled to Dubai with the cash needed to kick-start his own ventures, ironically benefitting from the earnings of his fellow Asian expats who typically worked as low-paid labourers. Wall St Exchange Centre became the UAE’s largest and oldest foreign exchange and money transfer company and was a lifeline for many who came to rely on Dubai to support their families back home.
Patel says he could sniff the money-making opportunities in the Middle East from 2,000km away. “I established the exchange centre to help the increasing number of Indians remitting money from Dubai to India,” he told us last year. “Dubai was just building up so labourers had to send the money back to India. Being in the roadways business I didn’t see any difference to transporting money. One thing went by wire and one thing went by truck.”
Patel spread the firm to the UK and Hong Kong, as well as other UAE emirates and used the profits to branch into real estate, amassing a large portfolio and creating property advisor group House of Patels.
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