Rizwan Sajan

Some Lesser Known Facts About Rizwan Sajan

• Rizwan Sajan was born in a middle class family. His father worked as a supervisor at Nathani High Steel factory where he earn Rs 7,000 per month.

  

• He had been interested in business since he was a child. At the age of 12, he asked his father to lend him Rs 1000 and promised to return it with interest. With that money, he bought books and stationery from wholesale market and sold them to his school friends at market price.

• He lost his father when he was 16 years old. After his father’s death, he had to drop his education to support his family financially. At that time, he did several small jobs such as selling books and festival firecrackers, and delivering milk.

• After his father’s death, his mother suffered epilepsy and was in and out of hospital.

  

• In 1981, he received a letter from his uncle from Kuwait on his 18th birthday. His uncle offered him a job of a sales trainee for a monthly salary of 150 Kuwaiti dinar (Rs 18,000) in Kuwait.

• He later shifted to Kuwait and stayed with his uncle for six months. There, they were 13 people sharing a single room.

•  In 1991, he had to return Mumbai after the Gulf War started. Later, he gave a few interviews including one for a job in Dubai for which he got selected. Initially, he was offered a salary of Dh3,000 a month but by the time he signed the contract with his employer, his salary was reduced to half.

• In 1993, he moved to Dubai and started working at a hardware store.

• In the same year, he established a small trading firm named ‘Danube.’ Later, he expanded his business into various sectors which operates in various countries including the UAE, Bahrain, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, India, and China.

  

• In 2006, he established a sanitary solutions brand named Milano.

• In 2008, he founded ‘Danube Home,’ a home decor and furnishing company.

• In 2012, he established ‘Alucopanel Middle East LLC,’ which sells architectural cladding material for residential and commercial use. The company is specialized in making aluminium composite panels.

• In 2017, Rizwan spent $30 million on his son’s wedding, which was the most talked about wedding of that year. It was a cruise wedding, inspired by the 2015 Bollywood film ‘Dil Dhadakne Do.’

  

• Sajan founded the ‘Starz Media Incorporated FZLLC’ in 2018 to represent the Bollywood magazine Filmfare in the Middle East. As of 2024, Filmfare Middle East was the only Bollywood magazine in the Middle East.

• In 2022, Sajan launched the largest indoor sports facility center in the Middle East named ‘Danube Sports World.’ It is set up on a 200,000 square feet land, next to Al Habtoor City and Aykon City on Sheikh Zayed Road in Dubai.

  

• In 2023, he launched ultra-luxury residential tower ‘Fashionz’ in collaboration with FashionTV. It is located in Jumeirah Village Triangle (JVT), Dubai and features 700-plus apartments, spread over 65 floors.

  

• As a part of Danube Group’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) plans, Sajan has founded the Danube Welfare Society, which provide free training courses to unskilled workers.

• In July 2023, some fraudsters impersonated him and requested funds from his friends and followers. Later, Rizwan posted a video on his Instagram handle in which he made an appeal to his followers not to transfer any funds. He also shared a screenshot of the fake account and a conversation with the scammers.

• In 2024, he contributed Dh10 million to the Mothers’ Endowment campaign, launched by the ruler of Dubai Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum. The main aim of the campaign was to honour mothers by establishing a Dh1 billion endowment fund to support the education of millions worldwide in a sustainable manner.

• He considers his father, uncle, and ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, as his inspiration.

  

• He often shares tips and tricks to succeed in business on his Instagram handle.

• Sajan follows a routine of going for a swim and doing yoga to maintain his health.

• He has been featured on the cover of several magazines such as Trade Fair Times and Forbes.