Everyone knows about the controversy around Lulu Mall, but no one knows who the person who owns this mall is. Today we will talk about the owner of Lulu Mall MA Yusuf Ali and also know how this mall got its name Lulu Mall.
MA Yusuf Ali was born on 15 November 1955 in Nattika village in Thrissur district of Kerala to a middle-class Muslim family. He wanted to become a lawyer in his early life. his father was a small business owner in Gujarat. At the age of 15, Yusuf Ali moved to Gujarat to help his father in his business.
He holds a diploma in business administration.
By 1973, Yusuf was 18 years old and moved to the UAE, where his uncle ran a small grocery store in Abu Dhabi. First, he joined his uncle's business and then explored new avenues of work in Singapore, Hong Kong and Australia, and found a new business idea - to open a supermarket.
The situation changed during the Gulf War
In 1989, Yusuf opened his first market store in Abu Dhabi and made a fortune But Yusuf Ali decided to stay back in the UAE even in such a difficult situation, and his decision made the UAE's Sheikh Jaed his favourite.
Close to the UAE royal family
In an interview with Forbes, Ali said that when Sheikh asked him why he wanted to stay here when everyone was fleeing the country, he replied that fleeing from problems was not acceptable to him. It is said that his words made Sheikh his favourite and he became very special to the royal family of the UAE.
Yusuf Ali was part of that meeting when Prime Minister Narendra Modi met the royal family in 2019.
Hence the name 'Lulu'
Yusuf Ali founded the Lulu Group in 1995, "Because Yusuf's target customers were Arabs, he added the name "Lulu" to his company's name".
Lulu Group has stores and malls in several countries
After 1995, in 2000, Lulu Group International was founded and its business spread abroad. Lulu Group has over 250 stores and malls in 42 countries. The group employs around 60,000 people and earns around Rs 64,000 crore annually. In India, the group opened its first mall in Kochi in 2013, followed by two more malls in Thiruvananthapuram and Bengaluru and recently opened the fourth Lulu mall in Lucknow at a cost of Rs 2,000 crore.
Yusuf has three daughters
Yusuf Ali is survived by three daughters Shabina, Shafina and Shifa. Ali is the richest man in India with a net worth of Rs 37,000 crore. He is 38th richest man of India.
Award -
He was awarded the Padma Shri in 2008 during the tenure of the Manmohan Singh government. In April 2021, a helicopter with Yusuf and his wife crashed in Kerala In which they survived.