Yusuff Ali: LuLu Owner's Biography & Net Worth

Key facts
Born	15 November 1955, Nattika, Thrissur district, Kerala [27][24]
Family roots	The Musaliyam Veettil family, a merchant family of Nattika; father M. K. Abdul Khader Haji, grandfather V. M. Kunjahammu Haji [29]
Education	St. Xavier’s High School, Karanchira (Classes 8 to 10, around 1970); later years in Gujarat before leaving for the Gulf [30][24]
Family	Married, three children; sons-in-law include Dr Shamsheer Vayalil (Burjeel Holdings) and Adeeb Ahamed (Lulu Financial Holdings, Twenty14 Holdings); younger brother M. A. Ashraf Ali is an executive director of Lulu Retail [44][91][3]
Company/Group	Chairman and managing director, LuLu Group International / Lulu International Holdings; chairman, Lulu Retail Holdings PLC (listed in Abu Dhabi) [3]
Wealth	US$5.75 billion (about Rs 55,200 crore), No. 47 on the Forbes India Rich List 2026 (October 2026); US$5.8 billion on Forbes World’s Billionaires 2026 [43][45]
Known for	Building LuLu from a Gulf War-era supermarket in Abu Dhabi into one of the Middle East’s largest retail chains, and bringing giant malls to Kerala and beyond

It was close to ten at night on 31 December 1973 when an 18-year-old from a coastal village in Kerala finally walked out of Port Rashid in Dubai. His ship, the Dumra, had docked that morning after about a week at sea from Bombay. Then came the road to Abu Dhabi: a single-track route through the desert, in the back of a pickup, on New Year’s Eve. “I still remember it took almost four hours that night to reach Abu Dhabi,” M. A. Yusuff Ali recalled fifty years later [26][32].

The place he arrived in was not the glass-and-steel Gulf of today. “Abu Dhabi was all of two roads; none of the glitz and glamour that you associate UAE with today,” he told Entrepreneur Middle East [23]. Electricity was patchy. In summer, he and his colleagues slept on the roof and poured buckets of water on the floor to cool it down [32][24].

Five decades later, the young man who loaded trucks for his uncle’s small food-trading business chairs a company whose listed arm alone ran 283 stores across six Gulf countries by June 2026 and earned US$7.9 billion of revenue in 2025 [2][1]. His LuLu malls changed how Kochi, Thiruvananthapuram and Lucknow shop. In November 2024, the Abu Dhabi stock market saw the largest IPO in the UAE that year when Lulu Retail sold 30% of itself for US$1.72 billion [37]. Forbes puts his fortune at about US$5.75 billion [43].

This is the story of how that happened: the gambles, the stubbornness, the political fights in Kerala and Andhra Pradesh, the failures, and the man’s own explanation for it all.

Where it began

Musaliyam Veettil Abdul Kader Yusuff Ali was born on 15 November 1955 in Nattika, a coastal village in Thrissur district, then part of Travancore-Cochin [27][25]. (The spelling of his name varies: Yusuff Ali, Yusuffali, Yusufali, Yousuf Ali. Lulu itself most often uses “Yusuffali M.A.”) He is the eldest of three brothers [23].

The Musaliyam family were traders. Onmanorama, the English site of Malayala Manorama, describes them as “a traditional merchant family at Nattika” [29]. His father, M. K. Abdul Khader Haji, kept a daily diary of every rupee earned and spent, and Yusuff Ali has said that is where he learned to keep accounts [29].

The deepest influence, by his own account, was his grandfather, V. M. Kunjahammu Haji. “He was my mentor in business, because growing up I spent more time with him compared to any other adult in the family,” Yusuff Ali said in 2014. The old man’s advice came down to three words, “hard work, honesty, and dedication”, and one line he still repeats: “There are no shortcuts to success. There is no country in the world that doesn’t respect a hardworking person” [23]. When the grandson finally left for the Gulf, Onmanorama reports, the grandfather gave him five rupees and a blessing [29].

He studied at St. Xavier’s High School in Karanchira, near Kattoor, from Class 8 to the SSLC, finishing around 1970. When he went back in December 2021 he told the teachers he had been “the 14th student on the attendance register” [30]. In 2023 he gave the school about Rs 49.8 lakh at an alumni reunion [31].

After school he did not go straight to the Gulf. Outlook Business reported that he moved to Gujarat, where his father had migrated with relatives in the late 1950s, and “spent several years in Gujarat before leaving for the Gulf” [24]. Many profiles say he took a business-management course in Ahmedabad; we could not find a credible source naming the institution or year, so we leave that as unconfirmed.

The family’s door to the Gulf was his paternal uncle, M. K. Abdullah. “The group was started by my uncle M.K. Abdullah in 1966 and I joined him in 1973,” Yusuff Ali told Arab News in 2006. “At that time we were dealing in import and wholesale trading of frozen food stuff and related products” [28]. The business traded under the name EMKE.

So at 18, Yusuff Ali boarded the Dumra in Bombay. He was one of many young Malayalis making that crossing; Khaleej Times has profiled another 1973 migrant who sailed from Mumbai to Dubai on the same ship [96]. “I was warned about the difficult conditions of UAE at that time, and I was prepared to go the hard way,” he said later. “Against all odds, what kept me grounded in UAE in the initial days, was that I had to succeed” [23].

The first break

Loading trucks, learning the trade

For the first years he did everything. Forbes described a family business where the owners did their own loading, truck-driving and deliveries [25]. Gulf News wrote that he handled the loading, driving and selling himself [33]. “When we started, there was only a few of us, and we were all sharing a table,” he said [23].

EMKE imported frozen meat, seafood and other foods from Europe, the United States and India, and sold them to hotels, caterers, ship chandlers and the oil-company camps that housed thousands of Western and Asian workers in the interior [25][33]. “One thing led to another and we were soon importing a host of frozen foods from Europe and elsewhere and the business started to flourish,” he told Outlook Business [24]. By the early 1980s, his brother M. A. Ashraf Ali recalls, Yusuff Ali had built a cold-storage facility to hold large quantities of imports [34]. Ashraf Ali joined the business in 1981 [3][34]. Over time his ageing uncle handed the trading business over to him [24].

The Gulf War gamble

The moment that made LuLu came out of a crisis. On 2 August 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait. Expatriates across the Gulf talked of pulling out their money and leaving. “The expat population was talking about pulling their money out and fleeing the region!” Yusuff Ali recalled. “I decided to stay and go ahead” [23].

“I opened my first LuLu store in 1990 at the height of the Gulf War, on airport road in Abu Dhabi,” he told Entrepreneur Middle East, calling it the one real risk of his career: “A few years before or after wasn’t a risk, but that year it was extremely so” [23]. Other sources date LuLu’s beginnings slightly differently. Forbes and Arab News place the first supermarket in the early 1990s, as the Gulf War began [25][28]; an Images RetailME profile places the first “Lulu Centre” on Hamdan Street in 1992 [34]. What every account agrees on is that he opened when others were leaving.

“The Gulf War was the turning point in my business career,” he said in 2006. “When most investors and residents were apprehensive of the prevailing market scenario, I went ahead and invested” [28]. Outlook Business reported that the UAE’s rulers and citizens saw the investment as an act of loyalty to the country [24]. That goodwill, built in the young federation’s first decades, would matter for the rest of his career. He has always credited the founding president, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan: “Shaikh Zayed was a great personality and philanthropist. He was a great administrator and a people-loving leader” [93].

The first hypermarket

The bigger idea came a decade later. When Carrefour arrived in Dubai in the mid-1990s with the big-box hypermarket format, Yusuff Ali decided LuLu had to compete at that scale [24]. The first LuLu Hypermarket opened at Al Qusais (Ghusais) in Dubai in October 2000 [34][33]. He has called it the group’s turning point [33]. “Hypermarkets are our main business and not shopping malls,” he told Outlook Business in 2015, even as he was building malls [24].

Building the empire

Across the Gulf, 2000 to 2015

What followed was one of the fastest retail expansions the Gulf has seen. LuLu spread across the Gulf states and Yemen, and later into Egypt, Malaysia and Indonesia [47][11]. Within eight years of the first hypermarket the group had 72 stores [24]. By 2014 it ran 114 hypermarkets, supermarkets, department stores and malls, employed 34,500 people and reported turnover of US$5.8 billion [47].

The formula was simple to describe and hard to copy: very large stores, a mix of Arab, Indian, Filipino, Western and other foods aimed at the Gulf’s many expatriate communities, and a sourcing network that bought directly from farms and factories. LuLu built its own food-processing and export hubs, including in India, to feed the stores [33][49]. Yusuff Ali’s own explanation is more personal: “business is not about money, products or services, it’s about people,” he told Al Arabiya [32].

Forbes first counted him a billionaire in February 2013 [25]. The honours had already begun: the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman in 2005 and the Padma Shri in 2008 [14].

India: the malls

Yusuff Ali had long wanted to invest at home. The idea for a giant Kochi mall, he has said, came from a conversation with the late CPI(M) leader Kodiyeri Balakrishnan: “He asked me whether one such can be started in Kerala… We established the LuLu mall in Kochi taking inspiration from his words” [92].

LuLu International Shopping Mall at Edappally, Kochi, opened in March 2013. Lulu put the investment at Rs 1,600 crore on a 17-acre site, with about 8,000 direct jobs [7]. It became the template for what followed:

• Thiruvananthapuram: Lulu Mall at Akkulam, inaugurated by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on 16 December 2021, about Rs 2,000 crore and some 2 million sq ft [8].
• Lucknow: Lulu Mall, inaugurated by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on 10 July 2022; Rs 2,000 crore, 2.2 million sq ft [9].
• Hyderabad: a Rs 300 crore mall at Kukatpally in September 2023, part of a Rs 3,500 crore Telangana commitment that also included a meat-processing plant [49].
• Coimbatore: LuLu’s first Tamil Nadu hypermarket, June 2023 [13].
• Kerala’s smaller cities: Palakkad (2023), Kozhikode (2024) and Kottayam (December 2024), the last being LuLu’s fifth mall in Kerala [95].
• Ahmedabad: about 16 acres bought from the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation for Rs 519 crore [51], for a mall of about Rs 4,000 crore (US$483 million) that Lulu has called India’s largest [52].

In June 2023 the group said it had already invested more than Rs 20,000 crore in India and planned Rs 10,000 crore more over three years [50]. Yusuff Ali credits a policy change for making this possible. “It was after we talked to the Prime Minister (Narendra Modi)… that he declared that NRI investments would be treated as domestic investments. Otherwise I would not have been able to open Lulu in India,” he said in 2022 [66]. (For context on how much money Gulf Indians send home, see our look at NRI deposits in 2026.)

He also built hotels and convention space in Kerala. The Lulu Bolgatty International Convention Centre and Grand Hyatt Kochi Bolgatty opened in April 2018 at a cost Lulu put at Rs 1,800 crore [10]. A Hyatt Regency followed in Thiruvananthapuram in 2022, at Rs 600 crore [12].

Beyond retail

The wider family business spread into finance and hospitality. His son-in-law Adeeb Ahamed runs Lulu Financial Holdings (the Lulu Exchange remittance chain) and Twenty14 Holdings [91]. Twenty14 bought the Waldorf Astoria Edinburgh - The Caledonian for £85 million in 2018 [54] and turned the old Metropolitan Police headquarters in London into the Great Scotland Yard Hotel, which opened in 2019 [53]. Lulu also bought a stake in the British fine-foods brand The East India Company, an investment Gulf News put at about US$85 million [56].

In India he has sat on the boards of Cochin International Airport (CIAL) and Kannur International Airport, and he is vice-chairman of NORKA Roots, Kerala’s agency for non-resident Keralites [14]. He was an Air India director from 2010 until 2012, when he resigned saying he was pained by high Gulf-to-Kerala airfares [55].

2020: the royal partner

In April 2020, as Covid-19 hit, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter, that an Abu Dhabi investment firm backed by a member of the ruling family had agreed to buy almost 20% of LuLu Group for just over US$1 billion; Lulu declined at the time to comment on “market rumours” [35]. Bloomberg later described the buyer as a company led by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who also chairs the state fund ADQ [36]. In October 2020 ADQ and Lulu signed a separate, non-binding agreement for up to US$1 billion more to expand in Egypt; Lulu’s announcement described it as “on top of the US$1 billion ADQ invested earlier in 2020” [6]. “Egypt is a very important growth market for us,” Yusuff Ali said [6].

LuLu opened its 200th store, in New Cairo, in February 2021. The group said it then had turnover of about US$8.4 billion and about 55,000 staff [11]. By 2023 it reported more than 65,000 employees and refinanced about US$2.7 billion of debt with four UAE banks ahead of a possible listing [48].

The IPO

On 22 October 2024 Lulu announced that Lulu Retail Holdings, which holds the hypermarket business in the six Gulf states, would list on the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange [4]. India, Egypt, Malaysia and Indonesia stayed outside the listed company [4].

Demand was huge. The offer was raised from 25% to 30% of the shares, about 3.1 billion shares [38]. It was priced at AED 2.04, the top of the range, raising AED 6.32 billion (US$1.72 billion), with orders of more than AED 135 billion, over 25 times the shares on offer, from about 82,000 retail investors [37][5]. It was the largest UAE IPO of 2024 [37]. The seller was Lulu International Holdings, the family holding company, which kept 70% [4][5]. The money went to the holding company, not to Lulu Retail.

Lulu Retail began trading on 14 November 2024 [5]. Before the IPO, Bloomberg reported, Yusuff Ali had sought the blessings of Gulf leaders [97].

Where the business stands in 2026

Lulu Retail reported revenue of US$7.9 billion (AED 29.1 billion) for 2025, up 4.1%, with net profit of US$205 million and 267 stores at year-end [1]. By 30 June 2026 it had 283 stores [2]. But 2026 has been harder: second-quarter revenue fell 2.3% to US$1.97 billion as shoppers cut spending on non-food goods, and AGBI reported first-half profit down about 30% [2][41].

How the wealth is held

Most of Yusuff Ali’s fortune sits in Lulu International Holdings, the private parent that owns 70% of the listed Lulu Retail and the businesses outside it, including the Indian malls [4]. A fund linked to Sheikh Tahnoon owns about a fifth of the holding company, according to Bloomberg [97]. His own share of the holding company has not been publicly disclosed, so outside estimates of his wealth involve some guesswork.

Forbes put him at US$5.8 billion in its World’s Billionaires list of March 2026, ranked 720th in the world [45], and at US$5.75 billion (about Rs 55,200 crore) in the Forbes India Rich List of October 2026, ranked 47th in India and the richest individual Malayali on the list [43]. Hurun’s 2023 list had put him at US$6.65 billion [46].

For comparison with India’s other great retailer, see our profile of Radhakishan Damani of DMart.

The setbacks and failures

A falling share price

The IPO was a triumph on subscription day and a disappointment afterwards. On debut, the shares fell as much as 2.5% to AED 1.99 before closing flat at the offer price; Bloomberg noted that a debut decline was rare for a big Middle East listing [39][40]. By August 2025 they had closed at AED 1.21, about 41% below the IPO price [42], and in August 2026, after the weak half-year, they traded around AED 0.97 [41]. That is less than half the IPO price. (This describes past prices only, not a view on the stock.)

The Andhra Pradesh reversal

In 2018 Lulu laid a foundation stone for a Rs 2,200 crore convention centre, mall and hotel on 13.83 acres of beachfront land at Visakhapatnam, allotted by the Chandrababu Naidu government. In November 2019 the new YSR Congress government of Y. S. Jagan Mohan Reddy cancelled the allotment, citing the absence of a global tender, a below-market price and other irregularities in the previous government’s process; it said it had nothing against Lulu itself [68]. Lulu’s response was blunt: “Given the current scenario, we have decided not to invest in any new projects in the state of Andhra Pradesh” [67]. (The story did not end there; see Controversies below.)

Projects stuck in Kerala

His home state has also tested him. A planned mall at Ayyanthole in Thrissur has been held up since 2021 by a dispute over whether its land is protected paddy land (see Controversies). In August 2025 Yusuff Ali said publicly the project had been delayed by about three years because of “political interference” and would have created 3,000 jobs [21].

In 2013 he briefly walked away from his Bolgatty convention-centre project in Kochi after a political attack, before changing his mind (see Controversies).

Exits abroad

Not every market worked. LuLu entered Malaysia in 2016; in June 2025 The Edge Malaysia reported that it was closing its hypermarket retail operations there, keeping only its wholesale business, without an official reason [74].

The helicopter landing

On the morning of 11 April 2021, a Lulu-owned helicopter carrying Yusuff Ali, his wife, two staff and two pilots came down in a marshy plot at Panangad, Kochi, about 200 metres short of its landing ground. Lulu attributed it to a sudden deterioration in weather and heavy rain [75][76]. Everyone on board survived. Local residents helped them out; in December 2021 he went back to Panangad to thank the family that took them into their home. “It was Rajesh, who reached the spot first,” he said [77].

Covid-19

The pandemic hit just as the Indian mall pipeline was peaking. In July 2020 he said some projects would be delayed but investment plans would not be dropped [94]. The Thiruvananthapuram and Lucknow malls eventually opened in December 2021 and July 2022 [8][9].

Controversies and allegations

Yusuff Ali has a reputation in Kerala as a businessman with friends across all parties, and he has faced fewer legal controversies than many Indian tycoons of his size. The matters below are the main ones documented by courts, government bodies or at least two major publications. Several involve Lulu companies rather than Yusuff Ali personally. None has resulted in any finding of wrongdoing against him. This section is current as of 27 October 2026.

Bolgatty land and the “encroacher” charge, Kochi (2013)

Allegation: In May 2013 the Ernakulam district committee of the CPI(M) called Yusuff Ali an “encroacher” over 26 acres of Cochin Port Trust land on Bolgatty Island leased to Lulu for 30 years for a convention centre and hotel. Critics argued that port land should not be used for non-port purposes and that the plan was really a real-estate project; the party also questioned the land for the Kochi mall [57][58].

Response: Yusuff Ali called the allegations baseless and announced he was pulling out of the project and seeking a refund of about Rs 72 crore from the Port Trust [58]. Chief Minister Oommen Chandy urged him to stay and said procedures had followed the law [57]. Opposition leader V. S. Achuthanandan, who had cleared the projects as chief minister, said the land had been won through an open tender [58]. Pinarayi Vijayan, then CPI(M) state secretary, said the party was “not against Ali at all” [60].

What happened next:

• On 8 June 2013 Yusuff Ali reversed his decision and said he would go ahead, adding that anyone with doubts could go to court [59].
• In December 2015, the Kerala High Court dismissed petitions challenging government orders that relaxed town-planning rules for the project, according to a trade-press report [61].

Status: Closed. The convention centre and Grand Hyatt Kochi Bolgatty opened in April 2018 [10].

Lulu Mall Thiruvananthapuram environmental clearance (2019 to 2022)

Allegation: In July 2019, a public interest petition in the Kerala High Court alleged that the state’s environmental impact authority had no jurisdiction to clear the Akkulam mall because of its size, and that the site was an ecologically sensitive wetland [16].

Response: Lulu told the court that the state authority was competent because the project qualified as a township [16].

What happened next:

• The High Court dismissed the petition in August 2021.
• On 16 August 2022 the Supreme Court dismissed the appeal, observing that the mall had the required statutory permissions [15].

Status: Closed in Lulu’s favour. The mall has been open since December 2021 [8].

The Lucknow mall namaz row (July 2022)

Allegation: Days after Lulu Mall Lucknow opened, a video of a group of men offering namaz inside it went viral. Right-wing groups protested. A spokesperson for the Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha alleged in a police complaint that about 70% of the mall’s staff were Muslim men [65].

Response: The mall’s general manager said it respected all religions but did not allow religious prayers on its premises, and notices saying so went up inside the mall [62][65]. The management denied the staffing claim, saying more than 80% of its staff were Hindu: “Our employees are hired on the basis of skills and merit, and not based on the caste, class, or religion” [65][64]. Yusuff Ali later joked that the row “was free advertisement for us”, adding: “In my case, I am my own brand ambassador and all anger is directed at me” [66].

What happened next:

• Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said the mall was being turned into a “political hotbed” and ordered action against those trying to spoil the atmosphere [65].
• Police registered an FIR against unidentified people over the namaz and, by 24 July, had seven men in custody; according to PTI, none of them was a Lulu Mall employee [62][63].

Status: Neither Lulu nor Yusuff Ali was accused of any offence. The mall continues to operate.

Thrissur paddy-land dispute (2021 to present)

Allegation: T. N. Mukundan, a CPI worker and member of a paddy-land protection committee in Thrissur, has argued since 2021 that about 1.6 hectares at Ayyanthole bought for a Lulu mall is paddy land protected under the Kerala Conservation of Paddy Land and Wetland Act, 2008, that it was filled with soil and that it was wrongly removed from the state’s paddy-land data bank [22][20].

Response: Lulu says the land had lost its agricultural character before 2008, was legally bought and had all permissions. Yusuff Ali called the case “baseless” and blamed “political interference” for a three-year delay [21]. The CPI said protecting paddy land and wetlands was core party policy [22].

What happened next:

• In August 2025 a single judge of the Kerala High Court quashed the revenue officer’s order allowing the land to be reclassified, finding a mandatory agricultural officer’s report had not been considered, and ordered a fresh decision [20].
• On 11 August 2026, hearing two appeals by Lulu, a Division Bench upheld the quashing of the revenue officer’s orders, because the mandatory agricultural officer’s report had not been obtained, but also set aside a District Collector’s order directing that the land be restored as paddy. It did not decide whether the land is paddy land. It sent Lulu’s applications back to the authorities with deadlines: the agricultural officer’s report within a month of being requested, and a decision within a month after that [19]. “This Court evaluates administrative action, it does not assess the decision, but only the process that lead to it,” the bench said [19].

Status: Pending before the revenue authorities. The mall has not been built.

Andhra Pradesh land allotments (2025 to present)

Allegation: After Chandrababu Naidu returned as chief minister, the state approved a fresh 99-year lease of 13.43 acres of Harbour Park land in Visakhapatnam to Lulu in March 2025, and an in-principle lease of APSRTC bus-stand land in Vijayawada. The YSR Congress Party alleged a “massive scam”, claiming the Visakhapatnam land was worth about Rs 2,000 crore and was given at a nominal rate without a tender [69]. Public interest petitions in the Andhra Pradesh High Court challenged both allotments, and transport unions and traders protested in Vijayawada [71].

Response: We found no detailed public response from Lulu to the scam allegation.

What happened next:

• On 8 April 2026, the state’s Advocate General told the High Court the government had withdrawn its approval for the Vijayawada land [70].
• The Visakhapatnam allotment stands, and the petition against it is pending [71].

Status: Vijayawada allotment withdrawn; Visakhapatnam case pending in the Andhra Pradesh High Court. The YSRCP’s allegation is an opposition party’s claim and has not been tested in court.

Kochi mall parking fees (2021 to 2025)

Allegation: Two petitioners, including film director Pauly Vadakkan, challenged the mall’s right to charge for parking [17].

Response: Lulu argued that as building owner it could charge for parking.

What happened next:

• In April 2023 the Kerala High Court held that fees for the mall’s basement parking were legal, but that a separate multilevel parking facility needed its own municipal licence [17].
• In October 2025 a Division Bench dismissed the appeal against that ruling [18].

Status: Concluded in the High Court.

The LIFE Mission case: an ED summons (2023)

Allegation: In March 2023 Swapna Suresh, the main accused in the Kerala gold-smuggling and LIFE Mission cases, made a series of allegations on Facebook Live that invoked Yusuff Ali’s name, among others. The News Minute reported that the Enforcement Directorate had summoned him to its Kochi office to record a statement in the LIFE Mission housing case [72].

Response: Asked about the notice, Yusuff Ali said reporters should “ask those who reported the news”, that he was not worried, and that social-media attacks on him and his family could be pursued legally [73].

Status: We found no report that he has been named as an accused or charged in the case. Swapna Suresh’s claims are allegations by an accused person and have not been proven.

Is there anything else?

Searches of court records and major publications found no SEBI, RBI or CCI order, no criminal case against Yusuff Ali personally, and no foreign regulatory action. Some online claims about him rest on single sources or social media, and we have left them out.

Giving back

Yusuff Ali talks about charity in religious terms. “A businessman should be a social leader, philanthropist, and teacher,” he told Al Arabiya, describing himself as “a firm believer of the principles of Zakat” [32]. The record of his public giving is long:

• A life saved: In 2021 he paid Dh500,000 (about Rs 1 crore) in blood money to the family of a Sudanese boy killed in a 2012 car accident in the UAE, freeing Becks Krishnan, a Thrissur man who had been sentenced to death [78][79]. “It’s a re-birth for me,” Krishnan said [79]. In 2022 Yusuff Ali joined efforts to save Nimisha Priya, a Kerala nurse on death row in Yemen, including through blood money if necessary [80].
• Kerala’s floods: Rs 5 crore to the Chief Minister’s relief fund in 2018 [81] and another Rs 5 crore pledged in 2019 [82].
• Covid-19: Rs 25 crore to PM CARES and Rs 10 crore to Kerala’s relief fund, plus Dh100,000 to feed low-income workers in the UAE [83].
• Wayanad: Rs 5 crore after the July 2024 landslide [84], and a further Rs 10 crore in August 2025 to build 50 houses [85].
• The UAE: about Rs 47 crore to Dubai’s Fathers’ Endowment healthcare campaign in 2025 [86].

The Gulf has honoured him unusually. In December 2014 Bahrain’s king gave him the Wessam Al Bahrain, reported as the first time it went to a non-Bahraini [87]. In June 2019 he received the UAE’s first permanent-residency “Golden Card” [88]. In April 2021, days before the helicopter landing, he received the Abu Dhabi Award, the emirate’s highest civilian honour, as the only Indian among the honourees [89]. In February 2026 he was reappointed to the board of the Abu Dhabi Chamber, again its only Indian member [90]. “UAE has been my home for more than 45 years now,” he said in 2019 [88].

Succession

At 70, Yusuff Ali remains chairman and managing director. “I am not thinking of retiring,” he told Forbes India in 2018 [91].

The day-to-day running of the listed company is with professional managers. Saifee Rupawala is chief executive of Lulu Retail, and the board’s executive directors include Yusuff Ali’s younger brother M. A. Ashraf Ali, who oversees global operations, and Saleem V. I. [3].

His sons-in-law are entrepreneurs in their own right. Dr Shamsheer Vayalil founded VPS Healthcare and chairs Burjeel Holdings; Adeeb Ahamed runs Lulu Financial Holdings and Twenty14 Holdings [91]. Yusuff Ali says he let them choose: “They are free to do what they want to. I will be a guide, mentor and friend to them” [91]. He has not publicly named a successor at LuLu. Bloomberg quoted Kavil Ramachandran of the Indian School of Business as saying the next generation may not enjoy the same relationships with Arab partners [97], which is perhaps the central question for the group after him.

What their journey teaches

Courage is often just staying when others leave. Yusuff Ali’s defining bet was not a clever product. It was opening a store in Abu Dhabi in 1990 while expatriates were packing up [23]. The loyalty it earned with the UAE’s rulers and customers has lasted decades.

Learn the business from the loading bay. He spent his first years driving, loading and selling [33]. His later strength, sourcing directly from farms and factories for a huge range of nationalities, came from knowing what customers actually bought.

Copy the format, beat it on the details. He did not invent the hypermarket. He watched Carrefour arrive in Dubai, opened his own in 2000, and won by tailoring it to the Gulf’s mix of communities [24]. India’s own hypermarket pioneer, Kishore Biyani, shows how hard the format is to sustain.

Bring in big partners to grow big. The 2020 deal with an Abu Dhabi royal-backed investor and the 2024 IPO gave LuLu capital and backers no family business could raise alone, at the cost of a share in ownership and the discipline of public markets [35][4].

Politics is part of the cost of building. From Bolgatty to Thrissur to Visakhapatnam, his largest Indian projects have been delayed or reversed by land and political fights [57][19][68]. He has learned to keep building elsewhere while the cases run.

A listing is not the finish line. The record-breaking IPO was followed by a share price that has roughly halved [41]. Demand on subscription day says little about how a business will perform afterwards.

A profile for general reading, based on public records and reporting as of 27 October 2026. Not investment, tax or legal advice.

Sources (97)

1. Lulu Retail FY2025 earnings release - Lulu Retail Holdings, Feb 2026
2. Lulu Retail Q2 2026 earnings release (ADX filing) - Lulu Retail Holdings, Aug 2026
3. Board of Directors - Lulu Retail Holdings, Oct 2026
4. Lulu Retail Holdings PLC announces its intention to float on ADX - Lulu Group, Oct 2024
5. Lulu Retail starts trading on ADX following its record-breaking IPO - Lulu Group, Nov 2024
6. ADQ to invest US$1 billion in Lulu Group for expanding in Egypt - Lulu Retail, Oct 2020
7. Lulu Mall together with Lulu Hypermarket opens in Kochi, India - Lulu Retail, Mar 2013
8. Lulu Mall Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala's biggest shopping mall, inaugurated - Lulu Retail, Dec 2021
9. Lulu Group launches Lucknow's biggest Lulu Mall - Lulu Retail, Jul 2022
10. Kochi gets largest convention center in India - Lulu Retail, Apr 2018
11. LuLu Group launches new hypermarket in New Cairo, its 200th store globally - Lulu Retail, Feb 2021
12. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan inaugurated the Hyatt Regency project by Lulu and Hyatt - Lulu Retail, Nov 2022
13. LuLu Group opens hypermarket in Coimbatore - Lulu Group International, Jun 2023
14. Director profile: Shri M A Yusuff Ali - Cochin International Airport Ltd, Oct 2026
15. Supreme Court dismisses plea challenging construction of Lulu Mall at Thiruvananthapuram - LiveLaw, Aug 2022
16. Kerala HC issues notice on PIL challenging Lulu Mall construction at Akkulam - LiveLaw, Jul 2019
17. Kerala High Court on Lulu Mall parking fees: building owner's prerogative - LiveLaw, Apr 2023
18. Kerala High Court dismisses appeal challenging levy of parking fees by Lulu Mall - Bar & Bench, Oct 2025
19. Kerala HC sets aside RDO's order allowing LuLu to convert paddy land in Thrissur - The News Minute, Aug 2026
20. Kerala High Court quashes RDO order on Lulu Group's Thrissur land reclassification - Gulf News, Aug 2025
21. Lulu Mall: 'Political interference' reason for near 3-year delay in opening Thrissur project - Gulf News, Aug 2025
22. How a farmer's fight for paddy fields halted Lulu Group's massive project - The Federal, Sep 2025
23. Yusuffali M.A.: Leaps of faith, spirited strategy - Entrepreneur Middle East, Nov 2014
24. Keeping the home fires burning - Outlook Business, Apr 2015
25. Middle East retailer Yusuff Ali emerges as billionaire - Forbes, Feb 2013
26. Lulu Group International Chairman Yusuff Ali MA completes 50 years in the UAE - Gulf News, Dec 2023
27. M A Yusuff Ali, Top 100 Indians 2025 - Gulf Business, Nov 2025
28. Emke Group to enter Saudi market soon - Arab News, Oct 2006
29. Yusuff Ali became the standard bearer of family tradition - Onmanorama, Feb 2019
30. Yusuff Ali visits school where he studied 51 years ago - Kerala Kaumudi, Dec 2021
31. Lulu Group's chairman Yusuff Ali donates Rs 49.82L to his alma mater - Siasat Daily, Aug 2023
32. The Indian who sailed in a boat to Dubai and built a multi-billion retail empire - Al Arabiya via Dhaka Tribune, Oct 2018
33. Spearheading a retail revolution - Gulf News, Sep 2018
34. On the Cover: Ashraf Ali MA on scripting a success story - Images RetailME, Apr 2023
35. Firm backed by an Abu Dhabi royal to invest $1 billion in LuLu Group - Gulf News/Bloomberg, Apr 2020
36. ADQ to back Lulu's expansion in Egypt with $1 billion investment - Bloomberg, Oct 2020
37. Lulu IPO ends with 25x oversubscription, becomes largest IPO in UAE this year - Business Standard, Nov 2024
38. High demand leads Lulu to upsize IPO stake to 30% - AGBI, Nov 2024
39. Lulu Retail Holdings shares fall on debut after $1.72 bn Abu Dhabi IPO - Business Standard (Bloomberg), Nov 2024
40. Lulu IPO: Share prices close flat on ADX trading debut - The National, Nov 2024
41. Lulu profit falls as shoppers cut non-food spending - AGBI, Aug 2026
42. UAE's Lulu Retail share looks for rise after dividend - Gulf News, Aug 2025
43. M A Yusuff Ali tops Malayalis in Forbes 2026 rich list - Kerala Kaumudi, Oct 2026
44. M.A. Yusuff Ali profile - Forbes, Oct 2026
45. Forbes 2026: Here are the 9 richest Indian expats in UAE - Siasat Daily, Mar 2026
46. After US, UAE ranks second worldwide in hosting wealthy Indians - Gulf News, Oct 2023
47. LuLu Group: Setting new benchmarks - Khaleej Times, May 2015
48. Top UAE grocer Lulu to raise $2.7 billion ahead of possible IPO - Gulf News, Aug 2023
49. Lulu Group opens mall in Hyderabad, plans Rs 3,500 cr investment - The News Minute, Sep 2023
50. Lulu Group plans to invest Rs 10,000 crore in India over next three years - Business Today, Jun 2023
51. Khaitan & Co advises Lulu Group on Rs 519 crore land acquisition in Ahmedabad - Bar & Bench, Feb 2026
52. UAE's Lulu to build India's largest mall for $483m - AGBI, Jan 2024
53. Lulu rolls out the red carpet at London hotel - Gulf News, Dec 2019
54. Twenty14 Holdings acquires Waldorf Astoria Edinburgh - The Caledonian - Hospitality Net, Jan 2018
55. Yousuf Ali's resignation raises hope for Air Kerala - Gulf News, Jun 2012
56. Lulu Group makes $85m investment in East India Company - Gulf News, Sep 2018
57. Chandy urges businessman not to abandon crucial project - Gulf Times, May 2013
58. Achuthanandan backs Yusuf Ali over investment - Khaleej Times, May 2013
59. Yusuffali to go ahead with Kochi convention centre - Gulf Times, Jun 2013
60. CPI(M) not against Yusuf Ali: Vijayan - The Peninsula, Jun 2013
61. Kerala court rejects objections to Bolgatty Island project - Exhibition News, Dec 2015
62. Lucknow: Four arrested for allegedly offering namaz at Lulu Mall - Scroll.in, Jul 2022
63. Lucknow: Two more arrested for allegedly offering namaz at Lulu Mall - Scroll.in, Jul 2022
64. 'Over 80% of staff are Hindu': Lucknow's Lulu Mall after right-wing outfits protest - The Wire, Jul 2022
65. How Lucknow's 10-day-old LuLu Mall landed in a major controversy: a timeline - The Quint, Jul 2022
66. MA Yusuff Ali on negative publicity and business, Manorama News Conclave - Onmanorama, Jul 2022
67. Lulu Group snubs Jagan govt, not to invest in Andhra Pradesh again - The Week, Nov 2019
68. Lulu group's Vizag project cancelled due to land dispute, violation of norms: AP govt - The News Minute, Nov 2019
69. YSRCP alleges scam in Lulu Group land deal in Andhra Pradesh - The Week (PTI), Apr 2025
70. Andhra Pradesh pulls back LuLu Mall plan on Vijayawada RTC land after protests - The South First, Apr 2026
71. Lulu Mall land: What will happen in Vizag after cancellation in Vijayawada? - The Federal, Apr 2026
72. Businessman Yusuf Ali summoned by ED for questioning in LIFE Mission case - The News Minute, Mar 2023
73. Yusuff Ali (Lulu) breaks silence on Life Mission case - Ummid.com (IANS), Mar 2023
74. Lulu Group shuts down retail operations in Malaysia - The Edge Malaysia, Jun 2025
75. Chopper crash lands in Kerala - The Tribune, Apr 2021
76. Applause for pilots, others involved in Lulu chairman Yusuff Ali's rescue after helicopter crash - Gulf News, Apr 2021
77. NRI businessman Yusuff Ali visits site of chopper crash in Kerala, meets residents - Onmanorama, Dec 2021
78. Indian expat on death row in UAE flying home after Lulu's Yusuffali pays Dh500,000 in blood money - Gulf News, Jun 2021
79. Lulu's Yusuffali pays Rs 1 cr blood money to save Indian man on death row - The News Minute, Jun 2021
80. Lulu's Yusuff Ali to help save Nimisha Priya, meets Justice Kurian Joseph - The News Minute, Nov 2022
81. Kerala floods: UAE businessmen donate - Business Today, Aug 2018
82. MA Yusuffali of Lulu Group pledges Rs 50 million for flood-hit Kerala - Gulf News, Aug 2019
83. Coronavirus: Lulu's Yusuff Ali donates Dh100,000 to feed needy workers in UAE - Gulf News, Apr 2020
84. Kerala landslides: UAE-based Indian business groups pledge millions for relief - Gulf News, Jul 2024
85. UAE-based Indian tycoon Yusuff Ali donates Rs 10 cr for Wayanad rehabilitation - Siasat Daily, Aug 2025
86. UAE NRI bizman Yusuff Ali donates Rs 47 cr to health care campaign - Siasat Daily, Mar 2025
87. Bahrain honours Indian businessman Yusuff Ali - Gulf Times, Dec 2014
88. Indian billionaire M.A. Yusuffali gets first UAE Permanent Residency 'Golden Card' - Khaleej Times, Jun 2019
89. Indian business tycoon Yusuffali honoured with top civilian award in Abu Dhabi - The News Minute, Apr 2021
90. LuLu chairman MA Yusuffali reappointed to Abu Dhabi Chamber board - Gulf News, Feb 2026
91. Yusuff Ali: A mentor to his sons-in-law - Forbes India, Nov 2018
92. Yusuff Ali pays tribute to Kodiyeri Balakrishnan - Onmanorama, Oct 2022
93. LuLu chief: Modi getting Order of Zayed proudest moment of my life - Gulf News, Aug 2019
94. There will be no slowing down of new investments, says LuLu Chairman - Gulf News, Jul 2020
95. Kottayam Lulu Mall opens on December 14 - Onmanorama, Dec 2024
96. A sail that's been worth cherishing - Khaleej Times, Aug 2007
97. A ascensao do bilionario Yusuff Ali, que acaba de fazer IPO de US$1,7 bilhao - Bloomberg Linea, Nov 2024