Since the company was founded in 1981, the Roots Group has grown to become a multinational conglomerate operating across Europe, Africa and the Middle East. The Group has majority ownership of 26 operating companies divided into three integrated divisions, led from the Group’s headquarters in London.
“We have 300 people working for us in the UK alone,” points out Ousama Fansa, Chief Executive Officer of Roots Group UK.
The Group’s companies operate across the manufacturing, design and construction sectors, as well as services and distribution.
“At its heart, the Group is part of the construction industry,” Fansa tells us. “We are the supplier and service provider of choice to any main contactor in the world, designing and supplying the material they need.”
But while the Group has established a global market presence, the company has also established a reputation for not working quite like any of the firms it is competing with.
“Our formula is a bit different from anyone else,” Fansa says. “We do not have one competitor. We have a range of competition in every sector. We have competition in manufacturing, and we have completely different competition in design, but nobody has the same recipe as Roots.”
Roots Group has developed a solution that offers to design and build speciality products, manufacturing them in its own plants. It means that Roots is there to support clients from design to execution. It is a solution quite unlike anything else offered by any of its competition, anywhere in the world.
A Diverse Offering
Roots Group UK offers a wide spread of services across a wide spread of countries, which means a wide exposure to challenges. For instance, the Group’s work in the hospitality sector meant it took a hit from the challenges brought about by Covid. The company’s work in the aviation sector, such as its support for the Jeddah Airport, meant it faced consequences when work stopped for over two years of the pandemic. The firm has also had to drop projects in Russia in the wake of that country’s invasion of Ukraine.
“We have also faced the economic crisis in Saudi Arabia, but that is now over and we are capturing market share and seeing advancement and growth once again,” says Fansa. “We are seeing other challenges with the wars in the Middle East and the effects of Brexit.”
However, the wide spread of sectors that have given Roots such exposure to international challenges is also its best defence against those challenges.
“The good thing is that since we are in so many different markets, we can be affected by challenges, but one market helps another,” Fansa explains. “Our business in Saudi Arabia is growing well. We have 2,000 people working there and we are currently looking to recruit another 500. We have seen double-digit growth since 2022. We operate across three continents, which allows us to bridge between the different segments of the conglomerate. If one of the entities is down, another can adapt to support it.”
To enable that ability to adapt, Roots Group keeps a significant proportion of its returned earnings, creating a foundation for the company to build on.
“It means that when we have new ideas for our business and our line of products, we can divert production into something that the market demands,” Fansa says.
Rooted in Talent
As well as having those financial resources behind it, Roots is also built on the talent of its people. When we talk to Fansa, he is looking at recruiting staff to bring some new blood into the company.
“Roots’ staff are on a different level,” he says. “We have some of the best design brains in London, and we are selecting from the brightest people from the best universities. In manufacturing, we recruit internationally for people from labourers to machine operators and finishers. In Saudi we do not have all the talent we need, so we hire from anywhere in the world. We fly talent there, finding it through recruitment agencies and selecting the right people for the right jobs.”
Roots Group UK is a 43-year-old company and it has been recruiting this way for the last 30 years. It means that the company is familiar with the challenges of recruitment and resource management, and that it has been able to maintain much of its talent throughout those three decades. Fansa himself has been with the company since 1986.
And over those decades the Group has achieved a lot. When we speak with Fansa, Roots Group UK is close to hitting the £250 million benchmark for sales revenue, and it is growing between 20 to 25% every year.
“In two years we aim to hit the $400 million sales revenue benchmark,” Fansa tells us. “We are expanding our design and build anchor department. We are growing our staff and the number of projects we work on. By 2027 or 2028 we are working towards publicly listing the company in Saudi Arabia or the UK. We have recovered from the effects of Covid in all of our operations and have enough cash reserves to create a bridge to the future.”
Fansa has big plans for the future of Roots Group, but however the company grows and changes, the qualities that set it apart from the competition remain the same.
“Roots has a unique recipe. It has helped us to bend with the challenges of the past and we are confident that it will continue to help us as we become a publicly listed company in the next three years,” Fansa says. “This is our aim and we are already taking important steps in that direction. We will continue to work in the heart of the construction industry.”
