Named everything from “the merchant with a heart of gold” to “the man with the golden touch”, Pure Gold’s Firoz Merchant lives up to his titles. The chairman of the retail jewellery giant has become best known for his philanthropy, specifically freeing thousands of people held in UAE jails because of unpaid debts by paying their dues. Why? “My philosophy is simple… How can I pay back the [host] country? Saying thanks is not enough. How good a human are you? You have to prove it,” he told Arabian Business in 2015.
Just how much has it cost him? Well over $1m. In January, he paid another $40,872 worth of prisoners’ bills, taking the total number of prisoners he has helped since 2011 to more than 4,000.
Arriving in the UAE in the late 1980s, Merchant started buying and selling gold bars for just $1.30 in profit, saving enough in three years to establish Pure Gold Group, which now boasts 125 outlets in 13 countries including the GCC, India and France.
In April 2016, the Indian magnate revealed plans to invest $400m to double the number of Pure Gold stores and grow the brand’s luxury sunglasses chain La Moda Sunglasses with 150 new stores by 2030. In line with the plan, the group launched three new Pure Gold stores in the UAE and Oman in October 2015.
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