BinDawood Holding seeks to expand in Saudi Arabia, mulls acquisitions: CEO

Ahmad BinDawood, CEO of BinDawood Holding Co.

BinDawood Holding Co. is focusing on expanding with additional branches in Saudi Arabia and investing specifically in major cities, CEO Ahmad BinDawood told Argaam.

BinDawood said the group is studying acquisition opportunities in the Kingdom and GCC states, indicating that Egypt is currently not among its plans.

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The group currently has 86 branches inside the Kingdom and another one in Bahrain, said the top executive, noting that the branches are distributed among the two brands Danube, with 62 branches, and BinDawood, with 25 branches.

He stated that sales of the retail segment, Danube and BinDawood stores, amounted to SAR 1.32 billion in Q4 2023.

BinDawood explained that the Q4 2023 results were due to the company’s strategic approach, which included several marketing measures, cost reductions and adjustments to the product mix. These adjustments aim to enhance the company’s profit margin and leverage its insights from customer behaviors, particularly through the customer loyalty program launched about 18 months back.

He added that the program allows customers to accumulate reward points for their shopping, facilitating a swift response to customer preferences by analyzing their shopping data.

The CEO said that the loyalty program helped the company to leverage data and artificial intelligence for decision making, leading to cost reductions. Moreover, additional technical solutions aim to achieve positive results in the future by capitalizing on the customer base and minimizing costs through its subsidiary, International Applications Co.

He indicated that the branches in the central areas of Makkah and Madinah faced distinct challenges, which did not have a significant impact on the overall results. However, the high operating costs, lower customer purchasing power, changes in Hajj or Umrah packages, and the depreciation of currencies of several countries had a direct negative impact on purchasing power.

BinDawood Holding ventured into e-commerce and established an integrated infrastructure to facilitate the preparation of foodstuff orders, which serves the subsidiaries and platforms operating in this sector within the Kingdom and utilizes the infrastructure of closed stores to generate sales, the CEO said.

The board of directors is discussing the company's strategic plan and the available fields, indicating that it is studying them, their feasibility, and the extent of their financial impact on the company, he stated.

BinDawood added that the targeted sectors are data solutions, financial technology, finance, and wholesale distribution of food and non-food products, noting that these sectors are considered complementary with the company’s activities.

The company reported a net profit of SAR 275.1 million in 2023, more than double the SAR 124.7 million earned the previous year. Net profit for Q4 2023 was SAR 119.4 million, according to data available to Argaam.