DUBAI — During recent trips to Croatia and Malta, a Dubai-based billionaire and business partner of the Trump Organization looked more like a head of state himself — mingling with government dignitaries, receiving a presidential reception and visiting the glittering Mediterranean Sea.
Hussain Sajwani met with leaders in the two European nations and addressed local journalists, many of whom referred to his ties to President Donald Trump or simply called him "the Donald of Dubai."
Sajwani's trips, as well as a recent deal in Oman, show that Trump's business partner in Dubai wants to expand his development empire beyond the Mideast and a tower under construction in London.
Enter Sajwani's DAMAC Properties, which launched a new effort this week to sell Trump-branded villas at the golf course bearing the American president's name.
"My dream is as we have put our major, iconic tower in London, that we do repeat that in major gateway cities around the world," Sajwani said in a July online video. "Tokyo, Toronto, New York, Paris, I don't know. But that would be a dream — to grow DAMAC with its iconic brands around the world."
Sajwani's dream for a global expansion — as well his growing online presence among social media videos and posts — received a major boost with Trump taking the White House. It also raised the public profile of a billionaire whose fortune grew in part out of contracting work his companies did in supplying US forces during the 1991 Gulf War that expelled Iraqi forces from Kuwait.
Sajwani wholeheartedly embraced Trump, even as the US presidential candidate's campaign saw him call for a "complete shutdown" of Muslims coming to the United States. Once reaching office, Trump's travel ban on six predominantly Muslim countries avoided naming the UAE, a major US ally that hosts some 5,000 American troops and is the US Navy's busiest foreign port of call.
In February, Trump's sons Eric and Donald Jr. opened the Trump International Golf Club in Dubai , the first of two to be built in the sheikhdom by Sajwani. DAMAC share prices have nearly doubled from 2.17 dirhams (59 cents) a share on the day of the US election in November, to a high of over 4 dirhams ($1.09).
That made Sajwani, who owns over 70 percent of DAMAC stock, even richer.
Facing that sluggish market, Sajwani has begun to look abroad.
In Oman, he signed a deal in June with the state-run Oman Tourism Development Co. for DAMAC to help redevelop Port Sultan Qaboos in Muscat, a project valued overall at $1 billion.
Then in July, Sajwani visited Croatia and met with President Kolinda Grabar Kitarovic. Sajwani also visited tourist towns along the coast of the Adriatic Sea, according a DAMAC statement at the time. The local branch of Colliers International, a commercial real estate firm headquartered in Toronto, said it organized the three-day trip for Sajwani, trying to pitch him on developments on the Istria peninsula and Central and Southern Dalmatia.
DAMAC "continues to look at the investment opportunities" in Croatia, primarily along the Adriatic, said Vedrana Likan, the managing partner of Colliers' Croatian arm.
Sajwani then traveled to Malta, an archipelago nation off Italy in the Mediterranean Sea, and met with Prime Minister Joseph Muscat.
Both Croatia and Malta are members of the European Union, which Emirati citizens have been able to travel to without visas since 2015. That can drive business for any possible DAMAC project in either country, as well as create new European interest in Dubai, where the developer makes its real money, said Issam Kassabieh, an analyst with the UAE-based firm Menacorp Finance.
"It's a very effective method of branding," Kassabieh said. "Once foreign investors see the DAMAC name in Europe, they'll follow it all the way back to the source, which is Dubai, so they can capitalize on it here." — AP
