I really wanted to come to the conference and then they said maybe it's too late and then things happen. Such a great honor and pleasure. I must tell you that my story with your region was really an eye-opener for me because I started coming to the region almost 11 years ago and I remember when I first looked at Belgrade, GDP was minus one. And you know, by nature I'm just a very optimistic person. I said maybe one day GDP will be one. Maybe, right? Cannot be. Of course, a few years time GDP was the highest in Europe. But the interesting thing is that this region as a whole economic progress far better than the west of Europe.
So a lot of people probably wonder how did I start? You know, I was a small... I worked for a small bank. Then I went to... I joined a small investment company as an employee. Then the government, when I was 30, I think 32 years old, 33, they thought this guy's a good guy, we'll start a new government body in Dubai called Economic Development. So for seven years I think I did economic planning, Dubai promotion, I did tax collection, we rewrote doing business in Dubai. So it was crazy time, flourishing. We were about 250 people and then at the age of 36 I went to our prime minister and I said, you know, I love what I do. It's progressing, you know, I need to go take care of my mother. I'm the eldest of 13 children, you know. And he said what do you want to do? I said, you know, I want to start a real estate company. So, I had about $15,000. I've given it to Arthur Andersen. People who are old like me, they understand. And then we did a feasibility study. The good news is that I didn't have a lot of money, but my reputation in the city was quite good. So, in two days, I collected $300 million and I didn't sleep for a week. Said, 'Oh my god, people trust me.' And that was the beginning of my company.
And today I don't want to share with you the numbers because God is very kind. I don't care which God you believe in, but I really believe that God is so kind to let me do what I do. And I really do it because I love what I do. But I made a mistake. What's my mistake? I thought I'll be doing one bedroom, two bedroom, three bedroom. I still do the apartment. No problem, right? Real estate projects. Totally wrong. I realized that actually I'm in the business of economic progress, economic development, and I'll show you.
I'm so sorry. But before I speak to you about the discovery of what I do, by the way, it took me a good 29 years. So, I'm 67 now. So, because we're talking about my age, can I... I don't know how to use this, but how can I get to the kids picture, you know, just I just put a kids picture in the presentation. Are you able to put it in? Ah, these are my 12 grandkids and number 13 on the way. So, this is the greatest economic development in the world. Yeah.
So this is our national day and during the national day I have a house in the desert. So I take them there and they all dressed in the local clothing. This is my greatest project. Successful, great profit margin, great future. This is it. So I have seven children and as I said this is the most incredible achievement in my life and I really wish you, your children and if you have grandchildren the best of the best. So everything I do in my life, and check on me, check me, I make sure that my mother is happy and proud of what I do. My children are proud and I have to make sure these grandkids that my name is the respected name. And if you have that you will make a lot of money, don't worry about money first, do things well.
So okay, we move. So I realized that really I'm not really in the real estate business. I am... I have to understand food, I have to understand art, I have to understand sustainability, I have to understand technology, I have to understand trees, I have to understand opera houses. You know, God is kind. I gifted the city of Dubai, Dubai Opera House. We built it for about $400 million. And for me, a poor guy who used to live in one room with his brothers and sisters, for me to actually donate $400 million opera house, really beautiful, was such an honor for me. I was really humbled. Of course, I know nothing about how to operate an opera house, right? Then the city said, 'Listen, this costs $10 million a year.' No, you operate it. Oops. But still today, Fabio and his team are running an incredible program. So, it's one of the largest opera houses in the world.
But, you know, so it's changed. It's not about the tallest building in the world anymore. No. Right. But it's about something more important. What is that? I realize I'm in the business. When I sell you an apartment or I sell you a house, for that customer, it's the most investment, most important investment in the world for the family. Oh my god. So the people in Serbia or in Albania, okay, if you're an investor or if it's your house, it's the most important decision. That's the wealth of the family. So will we design it well? Are we going to build it well? Are we going to maintain it? Well, so what do we do? And most of our development in 18 countries actually we do one thing: annual maintenance fees of course we collect from customers and we match it to make sure that the development is beautiful. The flowers in the right place, marble is shining, the lights, the bulb, you know the bulb, all the lights are on, of course with energy saving. So we became in a different business completely.
You should see. Do you know how many trees we built? We've... I think we have some... we've grown almost 400,000 trees. You know how... you know how many... I have the slide. Can I... Are you able to do the slide where I have some... Yeah, I know. But I don't know how to get to it. Okay. Well, anyway, I'll just give you, you know, I've built about 400,000 homes. I'm in 18 countries. Oh, interesting. Our development actually in different locations stretch on 28 kilometers, beaches only. We build schools. We used to operate them. Now it's outside operation. We have more than 400 kids playgrounds in all different areas. 420 wellness... Oh, interesting. I have 90 hotels for very simple reasons that when I start building my hotel, you know, I call on Marriott and Hilton and great companies and when they come to the meeting, they ask me to stand up and sit down. Why are these people treating me like that? And they say, 'Yeah, this is our contract. This is what we do.' I said, 'Well, who's paying for the building?' They say, 'You.' I said, 'Who's paying for the stuff?' They said, 'You.' I said, 'Who's paying for the furniture?' This is you. Who pays for all costs? They said you. We just put the logo and we bring our reservation system. I said, 'Oh, really? Huh?' So, today I have 15,000 staff. Our address chain is better than Four Seasons. We have... we have four time. And anybody who been to Serbia, please look at our restoration of the incredible Bristol Hotel in the heart of Serbia. Have you guys seen it? The most hotel in the world. Totally in-house design, totally full management, and it's the old Bristol built 120 years ago. Restoration. That's the best of the best. Why? Because if I'm a guest in Belgrade, I have to show respect. I have to preserve things. It's my business that we're all proud of what we do.
Okay, we're not America. We're not the West, but we're good people. Can do good things. So, malls. Funny. Funny. Yeah. 17 malls. But you know, the craziest thing is really again, God is so kind. This Dubai Mall when we built it, we opened it during the crisis, 2008. Nobody wanted to rent a shop. Nobody. It was crisis time. But thank God I don't believe in borrowing too much. So we said we don't care. We'll wait. So today on an average daily visits about 350,000 people, 110 million a year. Not even in my dreams. Not even in my dreams. When I take my mother, you know, my mother dressed very formal with her covers, but you know, her face is out and you know, she just wanders and look and smile, you know, because you come from very simple neighborhood, you know. She said, 'Muhammad, you know, how did you do this?' I said, 'You pray for me.' She said, 'My God, everything is so clean and so well polished.' I said, 'Yes, people trust us. We do that.' So, we do that everywhere.
These are the countries. I think we said how many... how many marinas? Oh, it's somewhere else. We've got a lot of marinas that we are operating. I will not waste a lot of your time. Just I mean Emaar's Development Summit is close to $150 billion dollars now. Don't tell me how it got there. We just... we have incredible staff. They really do everything. I'm just a boss, but they do all the work and I love them from the bottom of my heart. And they really the best of the best. I started 10 years ago. I got tired of the public company. My company is public. I made a mistake. And then for the past 29 years, I do my quarterly results every three months. Every three months, I tell you what I do, what's my expense, what's my project, how late I am, what's my profit margin, every three months for the past 29 years. So when people talk about transparency, I've been through transparency 29 years. And by the way, the rules of public companies in the Emirates, you know, our governments sometimes they want to be even more transparent than America than Europe. So it is very transparent. Very like in my shareholders meeting sometimes some shareholders ask me please Muhammad we have a question but we don't want you to answer. I said okay. I said sir we want the lawyers to answer. Said okay no problem I have nothing to hide. Sorry.
So I started Eagle Hills where again hotel chains and development. Oh my family has a... my son runs this company. I helped him establish it. He's very careful guy much better than me. So I'm really happy and he's very good with money. Oh yeah. Six years ago I decided that I worry... that seven years ago I was worried that maybe Amazon will control my country. You know, I'm a very nationalist. I love my country and I love every country I do business in. I said, well, if Amazon can control everything my children want to buy, like buy milk or buy a t-shirt. Amazon is Amazon, right? I said, well, I think I should go and take them on. So, I gathered investors. They gave me a billion dollar. By that time I was 50 I think when I'm 60 years old but then I'm not tech guy you know I'm not 22 year old technology guy right 60 years old today this company is three times size of Amazon in the Middle East and we do something that's very scary it's called minutes which means in every city we have over 100 little stores behind buildings and we deliver everything in 12 minutes. 12 minutes. But we do everything else.
And then I worry about food strategy and food reserve for my country. I put bunch of investors. We bought a company called Americana also seven years ago. It's the largest restaurant operator. We have 2,300 restaurants and food manufacturing. We are food factories in the region. Ah this is good good subject. I think as we make money, maybe I just don't forget where I came from. I don't forget where I came from. I don't forget my mother, children. So you're successful. So what have you done really? But also more importantly, are you successful with responsibility? Because a lot of people when they make money, you know what they do? They forget about reality. Seriously, they forget about reality.
I think the people who knew a little bit of what happened in Serbia. When we started in Serbia and GDP was minus one, actually before the contract, we cleaned the river first. I had no contract. After cleaning the river, if you guys know that we've done the bicycle route, the running path, playground for the kids. We put the... in fact I brought containers from Dubai and I put them in there just to have F&B and so on. I spent $10 million before I signed a contract. I had a hunch that I trust these people. Then after I started, you know the story for one year they call me... they call me the guy who disturbed the ducks in the river. There was no ducks. There was just pollution in the river. But it's okay if you're honest. You wait. Do good work. And then today all these people who are marching, who used to march, I'm so happy that they are my customers and more happy that they bought and prices went up and they made some money. Actually, in all of the development, I make less. My customer makes more because I make 15% margin or 12. But then most real estate after you buy it, it goes up 20, 30 over six, seven years.
So on, I said that we've built the opera house in Dubai. I do something that's very close to my heart. Oh, we built the $200 million Dubai fountain also as a gift to the city because you know we built the fountain just for people to enjoy the music and the show. I have a little bit of show I'll show you. And because I lived in a social housing when I was young with my mother and brothers and sisters, social housing very close to me. So Honduras for example before we started the project in Albania before we got hit with the earthquake. So last year we finished 2,000 apartments that we gifted to the people of Durrës. We still haven't made any money in this. But you know what? Socially responsible good work will always pay back. We'll always pay back. And I challenge anyone. But in Egypt and other countries, we do it differently. And if I ever work in Montenegro, I'll do the same. For every like two or three homes or apartment we sell, we build one social house for free and we give it to local municipality to distribute to the people. In Egypt, I think the formula is that every three houses we do, we give one social house for free. We're making money. We should share. But is this... excuse me, is this just talk marketing talk or you do it? Check it on the internet. You will see what I do. Because we're grateful that God gave us a chance. And you know what my chance is? Not only because I worked very hard. I think my ethics is also good. But I think I'm so lucky to be born in the right city at the right time.
Like your amazing country and your coastline is what, 350 kilometers, Montenegro, right? I think the potential of economic progress, tourism is incredible in country. I mean last night when I was landing I look at your coastline it's like dream. So we do a lot of stuff, social housing, all the time. Actually, it's ongoing. It doesn't stop. But oh, by the way, the annual Dubai firework we do it fully. So, we pay about $25 million every year to contribute to the city as well. And we do a bit of social housing in my country because in Dubai it's different. You have families that need to have one more room in their house. So, we do that for them. And so funny when you do more of that profit line just keep going up and up really. Annually we build about 20,000 on commercial basis we build about 20,000 apartments. Oh yeah. For the past 29 years, we've built 500 kilometers of road, sidewalk, bicycle path, and we have 500 kilometers under construction now.
But then again, you know, if you look at... I mean, our parks are getting so sophisticated because we also realize that it's not... I mean, you know, to build one bedroom apartment or to build a hotel. It's the same. One bedroom in Montenegro like a one bedroom in Dubai. There's no difference. It's very easy to do. Two bedroom very easy to do. But what life I give you? What is your life after you step out of your apartment building? That's what you feel when you go to Montenegro, when you go to Serbia or other places. But what we are going to do in Durrës is going to be shockingly beautiful. I tell my dear brother Eddie Ramy that Durrës, I don't care how you look at it, Durrës don't compete with Monaco. Monaco is only two square kilometers of course we can compete plus Monaco is so old right. So the idea of creating life... and I have to read this funny story that I hope when I do business in Montenegro I do this. I do it in Serbia and I do it in Dubai, I do it in Egypt actually. When we start our development and we build everything we have retail, we do... most time we don't rent the retail. Most times we go to young entrepreneurs who are good at t-shirts, they are good at a coffee shop, they are good at an Italian restaurant. We say listen we renovate the shop for you. Don't pay rent. When you make it, pay us. Egypt. It's mind-blowing. Why? Because when you build a four-story building, 10-story building, you already made so much money out of the apartments, right? Don't be cheap. Don't be cheap. Support young people, but get the best and they will be loyal to you for life. But not only that, that is social responsibility. And we have a special fund that actually a lot of time even give them capital to say okay start your business you are really good at this. We have a little committee that evaluate that because you know what's contribution. So a lot of funding for young entrepreneurs that we do which is quite interesting.
You know you have to understand technology. People talk about sustainability. You know how tough it is to do sustainability. You know what monitoring system we have? We monitor irrigation water. We monitor lighting. We monitor safety. We monitor traffic. All the control rooms that we have and this was sustainability plus all the innovation in construction material design and I'll talk to you about design and I hope Hasham when is the guys installing our metal building in Abu Dhabi? Three months. It's the first time I think in the world we build a building that actually can be 100% recycled and dismantled. So I think when it comes to sustainability, this is... and at the same cost by the way. And when it comes to design, I really want you to know one thing. I really believe that Japanese people should look like Japanese people. I think also people from Nigeria should look like Nigerian people. Only makes sense. Why? Because even in architecture, my preference, but a lot of times I deal with government and government have their wishes that a place should look like the place. I'm an Arab. I cannot be blonde. I should look like an Arab. No, like Muhammad. But at the same time I also believe that if I take a picture, unfortunately a lot of people now they like modern architecture which I don't like that when I take a picture and a city behind me you should know that ah this is Montenegro. I really believe that is the right thing to do. I can see from the picture he's in Paris or she's in Paris, she's in Florence. That's what I believe in architecture that should represent the place. Otherwise, what will we show to our kids? But a lot of governments, they like modernity. But okay, but I like the place to look like the place.
Oh, this is really very important. One of the things that we've done and God is very kind again. In 18 countries, all of our management are local people and we teach them the craft. We really teach them the craft because we're lucky enough that for the past 29 years, we only have done large development. I don't know why. Don't ask me why, but everything we do is for like 10,000 people, 5,000 people. So we do the roads, we design the master plan, the roads, the schools, the clinics, where the trees are, you know, all of it. How we change the flower between season to season, the lights, the hotels, and that will teach to everybody in every country. And the best team, by the way, my best team is not in Dubai. My best team is sitting in Cairo, Egypt. So every country full-fledged local team and today they are the best of the best. But I make sure I pay them well so they don't leave me. I do. I really do. I believe that people are everything. But also the people in Albania are really moving upward. Doing quite a good job. I have Elizabeth there also keeping everybody online. So it's looking good. I like teaching the people in Serbia, Latvia, India, Morocco. I think it's our job to teach these people not only building but architecture, social responsibility, beautiful design, good maintenance. Remember what do we sell? We sell the most important investment for the family is your apartment. Even for investment, but if you want to live... so it's... trust me it's an art that nobody have seen.
Oh, these are just some of our beaches that we do. And I want you to know that we take care of beaches like no one in the world. And I promise you and I challenge you. Nobody. Nobody. Why? I tell you why. Because we honest to God, we love what we do. We really love what we do. And if you want to ask about us, we're not shy. We're very, you know, people talk about, oh, transparency. Check us out. Read the internet. Yeah. Check. Don't listen to anybody. Listen. Check us. I think our friends in Albania, they remember when I started in Albania, you know, again, the politics nowadays, you know, politics is crazy, right? Crazy. I think people in Albania when I started, I think I don't respond, by the way. I don't respond. I don't talk. I don't say. I say my mother tells me Muhammad good work show your good work that's the only thing that will talk. So I stay quiet. So you know in Albania when I want to start there's million and one thing going on about what he does what he doesn't do but you know we have some gorgeous stuff that are happening around the world. I want to show you can we show this video by the way this is a site that has six kilometers beach on the Mediterranean in Egypt. Nine hotels. Nine hotels. International marina, 8,000 homes. Golf course. Most beautiful development in the world. When I sold all these houses, I made 15%. You know what are the prices of these homes? 12 times. Because I was lucky enough. I bought one house for myself. I made 12 times. And my company made 15%. But you know something, it's okay. It's okay. Can we please somehow show the video? Even it takes two minutes, but please watch this. We do the restaurants, we do the food, we do the music, we do everything. Everything we manage.
Six kilometers of golden beaches. We take care of every tree, every flower and every bird. Technology installation like incredible technology we have. You don't do this because of business. No sir, you do this with love. So restaurants like that, we build it, we do the interior design, we give it to local operator and we say pay us later on when you make money. Move on. And by the way, if you cannot do these things, don't do business. You either do business properly or don't do business. We bring the restaurants, we bring the DJs, we bring the music with all of it. Oh, our theater is incredible. Like incredible. And honestly, I'm so lucky to do this. I am really a lucky man to do this. But by the way, this is now we started say 12 years ago, it's finished now. But this is old like old design, old ideas, old fashion. What we do now is so advanced is so much better because you know we learn over time. We learn over time.
Take too much your time. Where are we? Yeah. I mean, you know, we build the bridges. We build... Oh, this is a picture of Dubai Opera House. Oh, nice. Yeah. This is our incredible fountain. Burj Khalifa. I don't know. You guys go and see it. You know, I really don't care for tall buildings, but my city wanted tall building. I love my city. I'm very loyal to every city I go to and everywhere I go they ask me or some people want tall I do tall if they want short I like short buildings myself I like three-story buildings myself. But you know that's there. We maintain it, we take care of it, we love it but just like everything else. By the way in Dubai Mall we have hospital on the ground, police station on the ground, monitoring system on the ground, you name it, you name it, it's there. We have a very interesting monitoring system that every day we know what percentage of people are happy, what percent are not happy, and why. And I don't pay anybody any bonus unless they fix why people are not happy. So much fun. Eight marinas. Oh, I forgot. So, we have eight marinas. So, over time, we learn. We do marinas much better now. Yeah, these are 90 hotels and retail. I think there's... I don't want to also... we do the entertainment. We run our own aquariums. I mean we really my team are really great people. They do everything is done. Everything, entertainment, managing pools, managing gymnasium, managing wellness, spas, you know, managing our parks, our trees, our flowers, our birds. I'll show you something about birds. Oh, yeah. This is some of the social housing we do in Luxor. I have a very beautiful village that I do and in development where we do our development, we always build social housing and we give it typically to the like governor or the mayor of the city to distribute families. We go fix schools. We repair schools as well. And you know, I don't want to talk about it, but you know, businessmen a lot of times they should do more and we should do more. We have also program in UAE that we... I think we have about $60 million where UAE has a fund to fund young people. This is Egypt. Oh yeah. This is where we go. We do about 2,000 homes in Egypt every year for needy families. And I'm very upset. 2024 we couldn't achieve 2,000. I think like 1,800. My chief executive will lose his job because this something very close to my heart. A lot of orphanage centers. We take care of orphans. You know we take care of some people who we take some young babies who come from Gaza as well. When we are able to get them out. Then we take care of them until they are one year old and then after that you know there's a security check on families who want to raise young kids without parents or orphans. So this is a big exercise we do. That's okay. Oh this is Albania. Ah this is Albania. It's all by the way. This was like I don't know few months back but Albania's 2,000 apartments all done.
You know, I hope the media mentions stuff like that. I forget I forget to mention it. People may... It's okay. But you know what? My mom says, 'God, he remembers. He'll take care of you.' And then I say, 'Oh, yeah, exactly. Why should I harass Eddie Ramy? My brother, you never ever give me credit for 2,000 social houses.' But I said, 'When I make more money, I'll build more social housing.' I said you are your local housing. Oh this is just out of the blue when tsunami hit Indonesia because I remember my tent when I was young I said I can't I need to do something. So I found a company that actually built these homes. So I built I think about 70 houses for the in like five months for the affected families in Indonesia. I don't have business in Indonesia. Maybe I will have but this was done during the tsunami time. This is Egypt. Oh, by the way, when we built this, we did a survey in Egypt and all these poor families, they said one thing. They don't talk about their kids. They said, 'Please, we need a place for the cow.' Actually, it makes sense because my mom lived with her cow. She milk the cow, make the cheese, bake the bread, and feed us at night. And then I think in the 1970, maybe 1980, Dubai did not allow cows to be in houses because every mother had a cow because they worried that you know diseases stuff like that. So my mother was crying for months and months because she lost her two cows. So no milk for the kids, no cheese. So we have to take the cow out of town. I think my dad was driving her every like two days to go see the cow and come back. But these are beautiful. This is who we are by the way. This is who we are really. Don't worry about tall building, short building. I don't care.
I don't know if you guys the firework that we do every year. Next year is going to be very special. Will cost us a lot of money, but I owe it to my town, I owe it to my city, I owe it to my people. And the same thing in every place we go. By the way, every country I go to, I have a house. So, I have a house in almost every country. And my wife is very upset. I said, I belong to these cities. I need to go to my home. I don't want to stay in a hotel, but in Belgrade, my house will be... it's 120 year old house I bought. So, restoration took about a year and a half. But I still I like now to go and stay in this amazing hotel called the Bristol. So, we'll see. Golf courses, arenas. I don't want to waste time. We have an incredible project called The Valley in Dubai. Really amazing. Where do we have movies? I want to finish Latvia. Latvia is doing okay as well. Can we... Oh, Georgia. We are starting Georgia now. We have two big sites in Georgia. Croatia, we have about 23 hotels in Croatia. Again, we bought them old and we start taking them renovating. So, all of our hotels, everything got renovated. We just bought about I think about 12 hotels in Hvar and we starting renovation now. We like nice things. But then again, you cannot renovate a hotel in Hvar or in Dubrovnik like Dubai. It's a different world. So you have to accommodate all that. Okay, I'll skip through Ethiopia. I forgot. Oman, Jordan. I'll skip so I can go to the end.
Can I show the... there's another Burj Khalifa video. How is my time? Am I almost there? Anyway, if you find it. Yeah. I mean, I think like when I look at this like I'm like a child. Wow, this is so nice. But I want you to watch something here. The firework. Can you put the firework on? There's something important this video. Yeah, you see this. You see these people? Take a look at these people. Take a look at them. Take a look at their faces. Take a look at... I'm in that business. I'm not in the building business. Those people, you see how they smile? You see how they get excited that the world is a good place. You see that? And all colors, all nationalities. I am in that business. Okay, we're done. We don't need this. We don't need the fire. Oh, yeah. Look at this. Look at this. I am really in that business. I'm in the business of bringing cheers to people's lives, happiness. And I do this from the bottom of my heart. And when you do it from the bottom, you know what happens? Oops. We make more money. Shareholders are very happy. Because the rule of the world is very simple. Like that's what they teach us when we are kids, right? That's what your mother tells you. Do things right. Be responsible. When you make a mistake, apologize. I try to do that as much as I can. Why? Because God is so kind.
So, I want to finish by saying the following. Economic development and economic progress in a city or in a town or in a country when we do economic... when we do projects properly and in line with local rules, local guidelines, local wishes. It's an economic boom. It's an economic boom. And I challenge anyone. I've done it in about 18 countries over 29 years. But you do it respecting the rules. What we were talking about Hisham last night about the environmental department in Abu Dhabi. I spoke to the guy this morning. I said, 'Sir, I do apologize. Maybe we skipped some rules on environmental study because we need to replant some mangroves and all that.' And I said, 'We will adhere to your rules.' And if we don't adhere, don't let us do anything. Call him. Why? Why don't we do things right? Why don't we listen to people? Listen to communities. Listen to their needs. Because in my age, I really don't need to do business anymore. But I want to do business responsibly with love, with care, and I want to learn from people. So communities should tell us what they want, what they worry about, what we should do, what we shouldn't do. We're guests. Wherever I go, I'm a guest in their countries. And guest, my mom told me, must be polite and only do what the local people, the local community, the local country will allow them to do gracefully.
By the way, I forgot we do a lot of scholarships for kids, universities, for schools, everywhere we go because I think it's... somebody gave, you know, I got a scholarship to study. So, somebody gave me a chance to be who I am. So, I'm doing the same everywhere. Last thing I want to tell you that Dubai got hit I think about a year and a half ago with the biggest rainfall in eight years. Devastation. Devastation because we are desert, leak everywhere including my house. My house 30 years old. I thought it was built well but it leaked. So in Dubai we sold 130,000 homes and by contract the contract says one year warranty. Is that the rule in Montenegro? Two years. Two years warranty. So what to do? My head is spinning. You know I'm quite obsessed about my business by the way. What to do? And I will not lie to you. I was so concerned. I spoke to my mom, you know. She said, 'Take care of everybody.' I said, 'Mom, 120,000 houses.' She said... So I read them that, you know, my mom started reading only 10 years ago because she used to read the Quran and then she learned 10 years ago she started reading the newspaper. I'm so happy. So she told me, she said, 'Ali, I read in the newspaper like your company profit like $4 billion.' So still I didn't listen. I waited for one night. Then I announced the next day I will fix your house at my cost. All houses 120,000. The city jumped up and down. And the government called me. They said, 'Are you serious?' I said, 'Yeah, I made a statement. Every house you leak my responsibility.' We started the process. Then the government called me. They said, 'Listen, you know, our people telling us that the house that has bigger leaks, is it true you're keeping them in your hotels also while you are fixing the house?' I said, 'Yes.' They said, 'Why didn't you announce it?' Because it's good for the city reputation, right? I said, 'No, I worry a lot of people take advantage of me and they all want to go and stay in my hotels for free.' But actually, we kept them in our hotels. We repaired every single house. It took us about nine months. And guess what happened? By the way, it was really, you search it, search it on the net, you'll see it. You know what happened? 2024, we did a very simple study. How long it takes, you know, when you launch a building for sale, how long it takes to sell a building if it's our company brand. And what about other brands? We sell every building in about five weeks. Other people sell in a year. Oops. We never thought that would happen. So, good work will always have good results.
So I want to thank you so much for inviting me. Such an honor to be with you and I do apologize if I made this long. I'm a very basic simple human being. I speak openly and I'm glad you saw the picture of my grandkids because that's the most important thing in my life after my projects, you know, and my children. So I do wish you well and I love this country and if there's a chance one day I do something in collaboration with the local authorities, local communities, it will be an honor and it will be a pleasure as well. Thank you so much and I wish you well.
