Kabir Mulchandani is an Indian-born, Dubai-based businessman, entrepreneur and philanthropist from Mumbai. He is the founder and CEO of with interests in real estate and hospitality. He is ranked as one of the Richest and Most Powerful Indians in the Persian Gulf region.
Mulchandani served at Baron International and Baron Electronics, two Mumbai-based, family-owned firms that specialised in the distribution and sale of consumer electronics. He was termed as 'Mumbai's Marketer' by The Economist magazine in 1998. Baron faced with great financial difficulty and conflict with its foreign partners resulted in an end to this business under Mr. Mulchandani's management.
In 2011, he founded SKAI Holdings, a Dubai-based real estate investment firm. In 2013, SKAI revealed plans for a luxurious hotel on Dubai's manmade Palm Jumeirah, and signed up , the Los Angeles based hotel management company to brand and manage the property. He was quickly celebrated as the in the local media, along with his French educated Lebanese partner and architect and his long time friend Aloki Batra. Kabir's circle of trusted friends later expanded to include Indian educated consultant-cum-site supervisor-cum-hotelier and his CFO . In the end of 2016, SKAI officially completed building the $1.17 billion Viceroy Palm Jumeirah Dubai hotel with 477 rooms and 221 residences.
FIVE Hotels
In 2017, Kabir , symbolized by “V” which is the Roman numeral five. The Viceroy Palm Jumeirah hotel opened on 31 March 2017, with much of its beach off limits for guest use due to the ongoing construction works by master plan developer Nakheel. In June 2017, FIVE terminated Viceroy as its hotel manager, and the Viceroy Palm Jumeirah was rebranded as FIVE Palm Jumeirah. Since then, the new operator has completed all the unfinished works including the beach, spa, salon and 8 F&B outlets. A few weeks before Viceroy's termination, Mulchandani announced the first hospitality REIT in the Middle East. The REIT launch was delayed indefinitely, and there has been no mention of it after the initial announcement. In December 2017, Luxury Travel Intelligence, a members-only resource for travelers, labeled Five Palm Jumeirah as one of the worst new hotel openings of the year. LTI said the hotel is impressive but attributed the legal battle with the previous operator as the reason for the ranking. In the two years since rebranding to FIVE Palm Jumeirah, the property has won a host of international and local recognitions, including; recognized as one of the top ten hotels in Dubai by ; awarded Favorite Culinary Hotel at the ; a visit to its nightclub noted as “the most spectacular money-no-object experiences in Dubai” ; awarded best Rooftop Bar at the ; and Dubai’s Best Italian for Quattro Passi at the FIVE officially opened its second property, FIVE Jumeirah Village, on 2019. The property, which boasts 269 pools, has 247 rooms and suites as well as 254 one, two and four-bedroom . The hotel has won a number of design awards, including the Tall Buildings prize at the and the prestigious Developer of the Year at the Middle East Economic Digest Awards.
Controversies
In 2009, Kabir was arrested in Dubai for a case of real estate fraud. He was first let out on , and later acquitted of all these charges in 2010. His legal battle with Viceroy over operator rights of the Palm Jumeriah hotel was highly publicized, and continues to play in multiple jurisdictions. Viceroy's termination took place on the same day . Viceroy's web page has a clear note on it . In 2017, entities affiliated with Kabir have been the source of two out of a total of eight cases reviewed by the . The first case by , and the second one between .
Personal life
In 2012, he married his second wife , an aspiring real estate developer in her own right, in a three day wedding ceremony on a remote Maldivian island. Kabir and Nadia live in Dubai with their four children.
Philanthropy
Mulchandani, who won Philanthropist of the Year at the CEO Middle East Awards 2017, supports a number of charities. In March 2017, his company FIVE launched Project Udaan with the aim of saving a life every day in India. The project provides daily life-saving surgery to children born with congenital heart defects, whose families could otherwise not afford the medical costs.
