Living in the UAE for over 16 years, I have enjoyed the safety, the culture, and the opportunities to learn, grow and do business in this amazing country.
Hence, I have the pleasure to call it home, though I was born in Saudi Arabi and grew up in Lebanon, yet I chose to mature in Dubai.
One of the most wonderful traits I have learned in the UAE from the local friends and community is “Tolerance, Support and Social Responsibility”.
The story I’m sharing with you today isn’t truly mine, nor my client. It is the story of her father, from a well-known and respected UAE family residing in Abu Dhabi.
The story started around 20 years ago. When the father lends an expat friend certain amount to support him in his business. Things didn’t go well with the friend and the business went bust. He came back to the father offering a portion of the debt back as a token of gratitude and an apology for not being able to fulfil the commitment in form of: Shares, private equity shares into a company that those days was just at its start. The value of those shares where barely 6.25% of the total required amount, as this is what he could only do, this is everything he could give at the time.
Though the borrowed amount was a very considerable amount to the father, let us just say at those days it is an amount that can purchase two large apartments in the centre of Abu Dhabi city .
Forgiving his friend, while asking him to keep the shares for himself, the father refused to take ownership of those shares, thought they are only a very small portion of his right.
Yet out of responsibility and ethics, the friend didn’t accept that, he insisted on it and he managed a power of attorney document assigning all the shares to the father. He even sent the document with a courier to avoid any uncomfortable argument.
The father, a blessed man that believes in doing good and supporting others whenever he can without accountability, has been growing his family on the same virtues. Days and years passed since that encounter, the father put that document in his safe and forgot it for years to come.
Until one day that company was on the news, without any previous knowledge, the family was asking do we have any shares in this company? The cumulative answer was “no, not sure”
Then they asked the father, and he said: “yes maybe, but it is a small amount”.
The father shared with them the story that happened 20 years ago and that the power of attorney document might be in an old leather bag, it was never exercised.
The younger brother exercised the ownership transfer of those shares and to the family surprise as it was shared with me and i have the permission to share, that Karma paid back handsomely the north of 17X over the years, of what was the borrowed amount, roughly around 12 mlns.
Couple of deductions, I want to make, though this could become a nice motivational movie like “Pursuit of Happiness, yet :
- Time grows the right assets (investments and patience goes hand in hand)
- Karma is a virtue that pays off (the blessed father has been supportive, always doing good, god rewards him)
- Responsibility awareness requires respect – (the friend was aware of the responsibility and liabilities of his commitments)
- Organization is a key – (Keep your important documents and paper ownerships in the right vaults, how many times you have heard stories of people loosing keys to their crypto wallets)
- Always do the right thing with the right intentions –
