Big 5: Radic plans building materials hypermarket

Radic Holding has designs on becoming the region's largest construction hypermarket.

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Radic Holding aims to provide the biggest building materials ‘hypermarket’ in the GCC following aggressive investment in subsidiaries and a growing client list.

The company, owned by Saudi Arabia’s Al Rajhi family, has been in operation since 2007. Its activities in construction cover cement, precast concrete and steel products through subsidiary Radic Construction.

For the last year it has also been developing its trading arm, Radic Trading, to put itself at the forefront of Gulf distribution.

“Radic Trading has been going for the last year, and it markets the products that are manufactured by the company, as well as other products,” said K.V. Ravindran.

“It is the latest venture of Radic Holding. It is spread over the Gulf with a logistics centre in Jebel Ali, with showrooms and offices in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Morocco and Syria.

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“We want to be the biggest ‘hypermarket’ for building materials in the region,” he said. He added that the company is also one of the biggest distributors of ceramic tiles and sanitaryware in the region.

In particular, Ravindran said the company’s precast bathroom range is gaining significant traction in the UAE. “Clients can have their bathroom fitted and installed based on exact specifications by using precast,” he said.

Precast concrete products have only had modest uptake in Dubai due to the high supply of labourers that can instead pour concrete on-site.

Ravindran argues, however, that as the market is increasingly concerned with cost, the precast method can shave up to 30% off total concrete costs.

Radic Holding is investing around $60m in buying land and properties to be able to develop its manufacturing capability and distribution outlets.

The company sees about 60% of its revenue from exports, he said, adding that Iraq is one such market in which it is seeing activity.