The Rising Stars - OER Top 20 Cover Story Oman Economic Review - May 2008 

When Krishnakumar Gupta joined Al Anwar Holdings just over a year ago, his mandate from the board of directors was clear - the company was looking at a drastic change of direction and the new CEO had a free hand in fashioning its future course.

After some deliberation and thought, Gupta realised that to make the best of the emerging market opportunities, Al Anwar needed to bring in a fundamental change in its structure and operations. Keeping this in perspective, he unveiled his vision. 

Al Anwar would become a leading private equity investment company in the Middle East with a primary focus on financial services. The board backed the CEO's vision statement. It also gave him the green signal to grow the company's investments by 100 per cent in five years to RO20 million, with 60 per cent of this going into financial services, including insurance. 

Says Gupta, "Rather than managing a company, we now manage our investments." While the company used to get most of its revenues as a share of profit from its subsidiaries (companies in which it held a controlling stake), it now generates most of its revenues from divestments.

The change of track has worked wonders for the company's numbers: Al Anwar's revenues shot up from RO12 million in 2006 to RO36 million in 2007, an increase of 216 per cent. Its profits have grown by 450 per cent over the year.

This has helped the company to break into the league of OER's Top 20 companies. Says Gupta, "Companies which are proactive and are ready to learn will do well in Oman."