Ravi Pillai’s RP Group has executed more than $25bn worth of projects. It is a staggering figure for a private firm but Pillai is a natural entrepreneur. He set up his first business aged just 14. His conglomerate now spans eight sectors from construction and infrastructure to retail, hospitality and healthcare.
The Saudi Arabian-based firm is best known for its oil and gas construction business but it now boasts more than 1 million square feet (sq ft) of real estate projects under development plus another 1 million sq ft of developed retail space, dozens of educational courses and nearly half-a-million hotel guests.
In the past couple of years, the group has been keenly building up its real estate development and now has a portfolio valued at more than $2bn across its various related businesses. RP Group’s subsidiary Taj RP International is close to finishing the Crowne Plaza Dubai Marina, while RP Global is developing two signature projects in Business Bay and on Sheikh Zayed Road in Dubai worth a combined $1.5bn.
Pillai has said RP Global has significant ambitions to expand its real estate development across the GCC and beyond.
The group’s Gulf Asia Contracting Company, which has extensive experience in projects such as petrochemical plants, oil refineries, gas and power plants, and infrastructure related projects, received a feather in its cap in September. It was conferred a Guinness World Record for the “longest continuous pouring of concrete” while working on a $125m, 684-unit residential tower in Al Barsha. The record involved 20,000 cubic metres of cement that took about 42 hours to pour.
In August, Pillai hit the headlines when he announced he would hire 3,000 Indian workers with mechanical skills after they lost their jobs amid a dramatic downturn in construction work in Saudi Arabia when the government suspended payments due to budgetary constraints.
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