A Dubai business leader’s crisis plan: buy when others run

In 1991, as US fighter jets began bombing Iraqi forces after Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait, panic swept through a Dubai garment factory.

A rumour was spreading among workers – the boss was about to flee.

He wasn’t.

With 2,000 staff to pay and orders to fill, Manohar Lahori was flying to China to secure supplies.

Echoing today’s Strait of Hormuz crisis after US-Israeli attacks on Iran, the Gulf War choked off regional trade. Goods could still move then, but suppliers withheld shipments because transactions relied on paper and bank processes that took days. Fears grew that even creditworthy customers could cease operations or default on payments if the conflict escalated.

“I had huge orders,” Lahori, founder and chairman of Palmon Group, told AGBI. 

“I needed [fabrics], but suppliers refused to ship. They worried they wouldn’t get paid. So I took $40,000 in cash and went myself.”

Lahori founded his clothes manufacturing company in 1974 and moved operations from Mumbai, then known as Bombay, to Dubai in 1985, becoming one of the first businesses to set up in the Jebel Ali Free Zone – the UAE’s first free zone. The company made its name producing apparel for global retailers including Marks & Spencer and Gap.

To calm workers, Lahori enlisted his wife to show up at the factory each day after the school run.

“I told them she is here, my little babies are here… I’m just going to buy material so we can work.”

Around him others were making different calculations.

“A lot of Brits and others left,” he said, creating opportunities for those who stayed. 

He bought a factory at “a throwaway price” of $3 million – about half of its $7 million valuation. 

“The seller was about to go bankrupt and wanted to run,” he said.

More than three decades on, as Tehran launched retaliatory strikes on neighbouring Gulf states, Lahori is bucking the exodus again and hunting for a bargain.

Palmon Group has since pivoted from textiles to asset management focused on logistics. It owns warehouses and dark stores leased by companies including Noon, Deliveroo and Talabat. 

The UAE, targeted more heavily than other US allies in the Middle East, has long stood apart in a turbulent region as a haven of stability.

While residents have taken comfort in the country’s strong air defences, which have downed 537 ballistic missiles and 2,256 drones, constant alerts and Iranian targeting of civilian infrastructure have rattled the expatriate population, prompting both temporary and permanent departures. Even as a fragile ceasefire holds and some return, doubts linger over how secure they would feel if attacks came again.

Lahori recalls fears of Iraqi Scud missiles and chemical weapons during the first Gulf war, and is unfazed. 

For him, the playbook has not changed. 

“We are buying [more warehouses],” he said. “I have cash on the table.”

He has acquired two warehouses since the war began at what he described as “slightly distressed” prices, as he looks for better deals.

Dubai’s recoveries, he argues, reward those who stay put. 

In 2018, Lahori – who was named on the Forbes List of Top Indian Leaders in the Arab World – launched Manrre, a private real estate investment trust focused on institutional-grade logistics assets. Its shares are held in Nasdaq Dubai’s central securities depository, with a gross asset value of $153 million.

The shift has positioned Lahori to benefit from supply-chain chaos, and he has used that position to extend payment deadlines for customers.

Amid ongoing shipping disruptions, local manufacturers have been scrambling for additional storage.

“People are crying for space,” he said. “Where do they ship their goods?”

Image supplied

He also expects inbound cargo backlogs to persist for six months after shipping normalises, creating “huge demand”.

Rental rates for warehouses climbed more than 17 percent on average in 2025, according to property consultancy Cavendish Maxwell. 

In Jebel Ali, they jumped 22 percent. 

Lahori, one of the emirate’s first buyers of freehold property in 1999, has spent 41 years betting on Dubai despite repeated predictions of its demise.

He has remained at his Jebel Ali office alongside his workers since the conflict began, despite warnings the area could be targeted, and has not cut jobs or pay.

“Why would I do that to my people? My personal wealth can support this,” he said.

“I don’t actually have money elsewhere. Whatever I have, I put it in Dubai. My kids were born here, my grandkids were born here, so we’ll be here.”

Further reading:

• The ‘blockhead blockade’ will accelerate energy crisis
• Dubai is proven in war – now it must prepare for peace
• Fee relief for Dubai businesses feeling strain of Iran war