Translated by Sabrin Qadah 

Began his career in minerals trade in Abu Dhabi in late 1968 where his company bought the waste of oil companies, which had recently come to work in Abu Dhabi. Then he moved to work in the field of electric cables when power companies started to develop, put bids and sell waste until 1976, where he moved to Dubai until 1988. During 1988, he began to work in gold through a small gold shop in the gold market in Dubai. Later on, he established the first factory for gold in Sharjah, and in the early nineties, he founded a small gold refinery. Today, his company refines about 350-400 tons of gold annually.

Encyclopedia in gold

From a humble commercial beginning that relied on buying and selling metals caused by the remnants of the oil companies in Abu Dhabi in the late sixties of the last century, Munir Kaloti, the CEO of the Kalouti group could build a business empire that the value of gold and precious metals trading operations reached more than 32 billion dollars through it last year.

The Kalouti has encyclopedic information about gold, its prices and who controls it, and also has an extaodrinary experience on how to liquidate it, all the way to sell, buy, transport and store it. However, from a small shop for gold in the Dubai market, and a small gold refinery in Sharjah with a liquidation capacity of a few kilograms, al-Kalouti group these days can refine between 350 and 400 tons of gold annually. Not only this, that Kalouti group was able to expand its business and partnerships empire to geographically distant countries in Latin America, like Suriname for example.

Munir Kaloti narrated to the reporter of Arabian Business the beginning of Kaluti group, saying:

Waste buying

In fact, the beginnings of our business in the business world began in the metals trade in Abu Dhabi in late 1968 or early 1969, generally in minerals, particularly non-ferrous metals such as copper, aluminum and lead. Then we were buying the waste of oil companies, which just came to work in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi. Back then, the remnants of these companies were large in the oil fields, so we used we buy those metals and prepare them for shipment outside the UAE through the sea for it were not there at the time land routes linking Abu Dhabi to neighboring countries in the region except for a road linking Abu Dhabi and Al Ein City, and another unpaved linking Abu Dhabi to Dubai. We used to ship those metals to Qatar and from there to Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, and then sell them. Most of the material was of plastics lead that was used in cars and large machinery and other batteries industry.

The business stayed this way for a long time, then we started in the electric cables field where power companies began to advance and develop bids and sell waste, and we were the first to be aware of this aspect and began this kind of trade.

We have continued this kind of work in Abu Dhabi until 1976 roughly where we moved to Dubai and maintained the same activity as we added other activities to our business that existed here in Dubai, such as the trade of food. We continued this work from 1976 until 1988 approx. Yes, most of our business was concentrated in the trade of food and non-ferrous metals.

Two employees only

These were the beginnings. However,  in 1988,  Munther al-Maddakka who is the son of my sister, graduated from an Italian University as gold jewelry maker after 3 or 4 years of studying, which was a l prominent shift in our business. Then we started to work in gold through a small shop of one door in the gold market in Dubai, and that shop was not in the main street of the market, it was in one of its sub-streets.

Munther al-Maddakka also learned the profession of gold examining, meaning identifying gold caliber in chemical methods. He has also worked for an Italian company for a period of time. This was in 1988, where we had two staff members only, and then increased to four.

After that, our business has expanded little by little and we moved to a larger store. Then we set up the first factory for gold in Sharjah, but most of our business, offices and sales operations remained in Dubai. Sharjah factory was small at first but began to expand with jewelry industry to become one of the largest factories not only in Sharjah but also in the UAE.

In the late eighties and early nineties, there was an alloys show in neighboring countries, so we seized that opportunity and started working in a small gold refinery that could not exceed 8 kg gold per day, meaning it refines the impure gold to pure gold. That was the beginning in terms of the gold refinery, and from this small refinery, we expanded in the same place to a larger and larger refinery until we were able to refine between 350-400 tons of gold.