Family lose Dh100,000 as Ras Al Khaimah furniture business burns to ground

A father-of-two told of his devastation after his furniture showroom burned to the ground.

Taiwo Philip Akinmoladun woke on 3am on Monday to find his business ablaze.

The store was located near his home in Ras Al Khaimah's Jazirah Al Hamra area.

He tried to put out the fire but many of his goods were destroyed by the time fire crews arrived.

"I lost everything and I don't know from where to start," the 37-year-old, from Nigeria, told The National.

“I had so many valuable furniture and electronics in the storage area outside and the showroom worth around Dh100,000, but all of it was burned."

Mr Akinmoladun picked through the remains of furniture and white goods on Wednesday with his wife Damilola.

He said the cause of the fire was still unknown.

"I need to pay at least Dh10,000 to restore the place but I don’t know how," he said.

Before the coronavirus pandemic, he had 15 employees that collected and delivered second-hand furniture in Dubai and the Northern Emirates, but had to let them go due to a trading downturn.

“I just recently started to recover from this bad financial situation,” he said.

Mr Akinmoladun, who started his business in 2016, said his local community and customers have tried to help him get back on his feet.

“Some people offered to give me their used furniture for free, and I will be always grateful for them, but I don’t have a big place to store all the furniture now," he said.

"I need to fix what the fire damaged.”

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The Matrix Resurrections

Director: Lana Wachowski

Stars: Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, Jessica Henwick

Rating:****

Scoreline

Ireland 16 (Tries: Stockdale Cons: Sexton Pens: Sexton 3)

New Zealand 9 (Pens: Barrett 2 Drop Goal: Barrett)

Email sent to Uber team from chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi

From: Dara

To: Team@

Date: March 25, 2019 at 11:45pm PT

Subj: Accelerating in the Middle East

Five years ago, Uber launched in the Middle East. It was the start of an incredible journey, with millions of riders and drivers finding new ways to move and work in a dynamic region that’s become so important to Uber. Now Pakistan is one of our fastest-growing markets in the world, women are driving with Uber across Saudi Arabia, and we chose Cairo to launch our first Uber Bus product late last year.

Today we are taking the next step in this journey—well, it’s more like a leap, and a big one: in a few minutes, we’ll announce that we’ve agreed to acquire Careem. Importantly, we intend to operate Careem independently, under the leadership of co-founder and current CEO Mudassir Sheikha. I’ve gotten to know both co-founders, Mudassir and Magnus Olsson, and what they have built is truly extraordinary. They are first-class entrepreneurs who share our platform vision and, like us, have launched a wide range of products—from digital payments to food delivery—to serve consumers.

I expect many of you will ask how we arrived at this structure, meaning allowing Careem to maintain an independent brand and operate separately. After careful consideration, we decided that this framework has the advantage of letting us build new products and try new ideas across not one, but two, strong brands, with strong operators within each. Over time, by integrating parts of our networks, we can operate more efficiently, achieve even lower wait times, expand new products like high-capacity vehicles and payments, and quicken the already remarkable pace of innovation in the region.

This acquisition is subject to regulatory approval in various countries, which we don’t expect before Q1 2020. Until then, nothing changes. And since both companies will continue to largely operate separately after the acquisition, very little will change in either teams’ day-to-day operations post-close. Today’s news is a testament to the incredible business our team has worked so hard to build.

It’s a great day for the Middle East, for the region’s thriving tech sector, for Careem, and for Uber.

Uber on,

Dara