In a rare joint interview, billionaire businessman Rizwan Sajan sits down with his brother Anis and only son Adel to share what it really takes to build a lasting family dynasty.

No Summer Holidays

Joining the family business was never going to be easy for Adel Sajan. "You know how you have summer holidays between schools? I used to spend my summer holidays at our building materials shop in Deira," he says, laughing.

If your father is Rizwan Sajan, who turned that small Deira trading office into Danube Group, one of the region's biggest building materials suppliers, you might as well skip the holidays to keep up.

A lot of the staff [had] the notion that this 22 year-old is coming in because he's 'daddy's son'

Adel has been doing exactly that since he was 13. Now just 29, he has transformed the group's home décor and furniture business, Danube Home (formerly Buildmart), into a force spanning the UAE, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Bahrain. The one-stop destination for furniture and interior design offers up to 50,000 products sourced from the US, Germany, Turkey, Spain, India, Malaysia, Vietnam, China and Italy, and under his leadership the brand aims to open eight stores a year, adding 500,000 sq ft of retail space over five years.

His father's instructions to brand managers were clear: "don't treat him like my son, be extra strict with him." From the start, Adel was thrown in at the deep end.

"He sent me abroad with a million dollars and said, 'Go and source chandeliers'. [Just like] you throw a kid into a swimming pool… he throw me into buying, without any experience…"

Despite the missed summer parties, it worked out. "I started to enjoy it," he recalls.

Earning the Ferrari

"I made my dad buy me a Ferrari," he says. "That was something I'd wanted for a long-time."

Adel is no stranger to luxury. In 2017, his father spent $30m on his wedding, held over four days on a Bollywood-themed Mediterranean cruise with 1,100 guests, including Bollywood stars Shilpa Shetty Kundra and Gauhar Khan and music directors Meet Bros and Vishal-Shekhar. "The wedding of my only son Adel is by far the most awaited event of my life and words cannot express the joy I feel," Rizwan Sajan told Arabian Business at the time.

When we started the real estate business, we decided we are not going to target the luxury business

The elder Sajan is quick to clarify that the Ferrari came only once his son had fully earned it. "Value of money is important. I remember [Adel] would get AED10 pocket money and he would ask for extra money, so I would say 'go wash my car'," says the founder and chairman, himself worth at least $2.5 billion. Adel has since switched to a black Bentley with custom red interiors, which he bought himself.

Growing Danube Home

Adel is now expanding the brand through franchising. "We have tied up with different partners and opened in Tanzania, Seychelles, Uganda and now we have plans to open in Nepal, Egypt, Zambia and Lebanon," he says. "Currently, in franchises, we have about five stores in three countries, but, this year, we signed a lot of contracts. So by the end of 2019, we should be in 10 countries, excluding our home markets. Initially, it takes time, but it's picking up."

The numbers support him. In 2014, he planned to grow the retail business tenfold in six years, and for the past four years he has been on track. He credits "luck", but proving he was not just "daddy's boy" took hard work.

"You get a big jumpstart in that, by the time I had graduated, I had experience in buying, selling, warehousing, logistics, marketing… so I had five or six years' experience before I graduated."

"But, one of the things [you face] when you come in as the chairman's son is that a lot of the staff will have the notion that they have this 22 year-old coming in because he's 'daddy's son' [and they say] does he really deserve it? It takes a couple of years [to] get the team on board and prove yourself," he says.

Anis Sajan: The Right Place at the Right Time

His uncle Anis was still in college when his brother Rizwan asked him to join the business. "He said, 'Why don't you come over [to Dubai]?' and I said 'why not?'"

By the end of 2019, we should be in 10 countries, excluding our home markets. Initially, it takes time, but it's picking up

Now the group's managing director, Anis says he had "no second thoughts" about leaving his studies to work alongside his brother, and credits being "at the right place at the right time" for the company's 30–40% growth rate.

Rizwan says it is largely down to smart recruitment. "Recruitment was the key – getting the right people, making sure they are handling the right things. When you are going at that speed, you have to look not only at the numbers and the sales, but make sure the processes are in control. Because you can be taken for a ride if you are not controlling the processes, the logistics department, the HR department," he says.

Danube Properties and the 1 Percent Plan

That rapid growth continues through Danube Properties, launched in June 2014 with a focus on affordable housing and an initial AED 500m ($136m) townhouse launch at Al Furjan. By April this year it had 12 projects and a portfolio of more than 5,000 units worth over $1 billion. Last year, despite a slowdown in Dubai's market, it recorded a 78.5% jump in residential unit sales, lifting its share of off-plan sales to 10.6% from 5% in 2017.

"When we started the real estate business, we decided we are not going to target the luxury business [because]… there's a huge population of expats [in Dubai]. How will the expats be able to buy, as they don't have that kind of money? Then we came up with the affordable housing idea," says the chairman. "I have a lot of competitors and everyone asks me 'how are you so successful?'"

I'd love to slow down, but unfortunately, it's in my genes to work

His secret is the 1 percent plan. "You pay a little down payment, and that formula worked a lot. Then we also had our Danube brand for nearly 25 years… Because we are in the building materials business, it is easier to find the right architect, [so] when we launch, we are able to sell very fast and then, most importantly, to find the right contractor. Because it is easy for them to work with us as 60 – 70 percent of materials required is laying with us," he says.

Sajan admits the market is "low", but his formula is simple: launch one project at a time. "If that is sold successfully, we go to the next one," he says, which means there is no need for a land bank, especially while land prices are falling. "We don't have a land bank. We buy one at a time. The price is not going up, so there's no point having a land bank. We buy the land as and when we need it… Land prices have come down, I say about 20-25 percent in the last couple of years."

Anis believes Expo 2020 Dubai could change that. "I'm sure the Expo is going to definitely help. History says wherever an Expo has happened, whether it is Milan or Shanghai, the after-effects have been beneficial… Expo will get more and more people to come to this country and that will help the real estate market," he says.

By the time I had graduated, I had experience in buying, selling, warehousing, logistics, marketing

No Slowing Down

Will Rizwan Sajan retire any time soon? Unlikely. "Slowing down is very difficult for me," he admits. "I'd love to slow down, but unfortunately, it's in my genes to work…"

It is only a matter of time before the next generation of Sajans takes over the Danube dynasty, and judging by Adel's summers spent in his father's building materials shop, the hard-work gene clearly runs in the family. Learn more about Danube's journey.