Empire Builder

NFT was recognised as the leading crane supplier in the Middle East this year.

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You can tell a lot by where and how someone chooses to be interviewed. I say ‘chooses’ as it is very rare the humble journalist gets to decide where it should take place. The number one place to be taken to is the office.

Typically it is because it is the most practical place for a CEO or Chairman to talk openly, but it also means you are meeting them on their terms and you must be prepared to listen. Often that means you listen, a lot.

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It is a relief then that Mr Nabil Al Zahlawi, the head of NFT has chosen instead to greet PMV in the company’s boardroom. Interviews held in boardrooms are much more open and instructive.

On the large expanse of the boardroom table are three models of cranes, the largest of which rises over a metre in the air. Although, even that is dominated by a giant TV screen that is showing CNBC’s stock market report. Zahlawi sits reviewing the trading information and market prices when we greet each other.

“I like to see what the markets and currencies are up to. I find it relaxing. Sometimes I sit here and watch the screen like some people listen to soft music,” he says

The boardroom itself sits at the centre of the company’s offices in the heart of Port Zayed in Abu Dhabi. A hub from where Zahlawi guides an empire that includes an asset base of 600 cranes and hoists that are active across the globe.

NFT, which is the sole agent for Potain cranes in the GCC, has recently been recognised as the number one crane supplier in the Middle East in a World Market Intelligence report. In its own literature it states that intends to move from being the fifth to the biggest crane owner in the world.

It’s a grand ambition and one that is softly and humbly portrayed by Zahlawi in person. He explains NFT may have started as a company that serves the Middle East but it is moving out into new territories as diverse and as spread out as Canada, Singapore and Azerbaijan.

“Our strategy is simply not following what others do. The clever move is to diversify and move to industrial centres, unlock new doors for equipment, find new buyers.”

Zahlawi nurtured NFT by not being afraid to move where the business is. He started in 1974, working on erection and servicing of cranes in Saudi Arabia for a trading company.