Abdul Hamied: Man of the Hour

The story of Ahmed Seddiqi & Sons might have a semblance of any other brick and mortar company where the offspring simply inherited a well-run business. If the familial plot seems too ordinary, wait a minute.

The settings and characters are vastly different from the mundane. This is the inspiring story of an Arab father — a visionary thoroughbred — living small and thinking big in a rustic town in the 50s. As the sandy port town metamorphosed into a world-class metropolis, the business of time that Seddiqi & Sons started with just 12 watches bought from Kuwait, flourished alongside. The vast portfolio of 60 high-end brands that the group now flaunts in 67 outlets in the UAE literally chronicles the meteoric rise of the city and the nation. They thus become the timekeepers of the land.

Abdul Hamied is one of the second-generation Seddiqis who strayed into the watch business and later into the passion of collection due to circumstantial compulsions as there was “nothing else to do in the olden days”.

“I was born in the 1950s when there were no facilities for children to engage themselves. So my brother and I started to go to our shop in the Bur Dubai Souq. In the morning we went to school and in the afternoon to the shop,” Abdul Hamied Seddiqi, vice-chairman of Seddiqi & Sons, told Khaleej Times in an exclusive interview. Thus began his life-long fling with timepieces.

“In the beginning I was helping my father with the dispatch, such as going to the post office to send and collect mails. Later I helped him with the sales and aftersales like sending watches to Switzerland for servicing. So I was my father’s courier service,” Abdul Hamied reflected about his father, Ahmed Qasim Seddiqi.

But the elder Seddiqi, with his passion ticking at a faster pace, had ambitions that were much ahead of his times. He expended longer hours scanning newspapers and periodicals for the latest brands and trends and continued to widen his collection and customer base. Realising that Switzerland is the place to be to grow in the business of haute horlogerie, he sent two of his sons — Abdul Magied and Abdul Hamied — to Lausanne in Switzerland for higher education where they mastered French and sharpened their knowledge on watches.

FIRST JOB

On his return from Lausanne where he took his Bachelor of Business Management from Lemania College, Abdul Hamied found the family’s two shops too crowded with family members and opted to take up a job with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

“It was a six-month stint. You know, when I came back from Switzerland, we had only two shops and there was no space for me. So I chose to be in another field and took up a job with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Abu Dhabi,” Abdul Hamied explained about his first career.

“The UAE’s development was at a nascent stage and the road to the capital was in a bad shape. So when I started to suffer because of the travel and the difficulty in getting an accommodation, I came back to my father’s business after six months. There was no looking back since and we kept expanding alongside the city’s developments.”

For decades Seddiqi & Sons has been a trusted name in the business of watches. What makes it tick primarily is the family’s single-sector business model.

“My father started Seddiqi & Sons in the 1950s and we continue to be a family business. While I represent the second generation, we also have the third and fourth generations on the family tree. Ours is a specialised business and we have not branched out into other areas like textiles, jewellery, etc. A specialised business running into generations, coupled with tradition, strong family cohesiveness and customer care, makes Seddiqi and Sons a great success story,” the vice-chairman said.

After years of dedication and hard work that took the traditional family business to unparalleled professionalism — marked by time-tested quality, loyalty, reputation and trust — nostalgia was writ large on Abdul Hamied’s face when he reminisced the good old days with his father.

When his father and elder brother returned home every evening, they would sit on the floor doing daily accounting and stock-taking. The little Abdul Hamied and Abdul Magied would invariably hang around making jokes about them, basically “because we had no other entertainment”.

“There was no TV; nothing. So while the elders went on with their business activity, Abdul Magied used to sit and draw their caricatures. Life was like that.” Those are the scenes Abdul Hamied loves to recollect in tranquility.

A PIECE OF ART

Watchmaking, according to him, is an art. He believes that while electronic watches hold no value, every mechanical watch is a piece of art beyond its normal function of telling the time. “It’s an accessory that makes you stand apart. We local men don the kandora and the only accessories we wear are a watch, a pen or a pair of cufflinks. So the watch — the unique the better — adds to a man’s personality. It talks about you,” Abdul Hamied philosophised the concept of a timepiece, recollecting that the first ever watch he wore was a West End given by his father.

“I still have West End watches in my personal collection and we still sell our very first brand,” Abdul Hamied said, reminding that the love for West End runs deep in the family. In the last few decades Ahmed Seddiqi & Sons claims to have marketed hundreds of thousands of West End watches, making it “one of the greatest success stories for Swiss watches in the Middle East”.

“I share the love for West End. It was the first brand we started to sell before Rolex joined. The fashion watches you see today never existed those days. West End was really a heavy duty watch most suitable for this region. Everyone wore West End and it became a part of people’s life then.”

Abdul Hamied admitted that he himself is a dedicated watch connoisseur and collector. “But we cannot keep everything for ourselves. We have to honour our commitment to the customers. Since we are in a business, if I take a watch, I have to pay. But all said, I have a collection that has plenty of pieces.”

His collection of rare and exquisite timepieces consists of over 200 watches of high value. “I have one piece which an auction house recently estimated would fetch at least $500,000. I was surprised. It’s a Daytona Gold, one of a rare 10-piece limited edition. All my pieces are of good value, like Rolex, Patek, FP Journe, etc,” Abdul Hamied revealed.

But does that make sense for a connoisseur to wear two watches? If Rolex and Patek are considered a luxury only the superrich will indulge in, what do you call a person who wears them on both hands at a time? A salesman?

“I always wear a Rolex on one hand — different Rolex on different days. And on the other hand, I wear different brands. It depends on my mood for what to wear today.”

But why two watches? Abdul Hamied shot back, displaying the creative spontaneity of his business acumen: “First of all, I live and breathe watches. This is my kind of marketing for the best timepieces we have. The idea is to tell people to wear good watches and that we offer the best of times. It’s my job.”

PASSION FOR ROLEX

Why this passion for Rolex? Because it’s there. “I love Rolex. For that matter, I love all my watches. But Rolex is something special to me. For this reason, I always wear a Rolex.”

“And my little nephew too loves Rolex. He always says, ‘I love Rolex, I want Rolex.’ He is small but he loves Rolex. I can’t ask him why because he is too young to explain. The love for Rolex essentially runs in the family,” the vice-chairman said.

He agrees that the Middle East’s honeymoon with Rolex seems to be never-ending, but people in other parts of the world too fancy Rolex. “Everybody — Europeans, Italians, the Far East people — love Rolex because it’s a heavy duty watch that is sporty and elegant at the same time. It also has value. Today, Rolex prices are soaring at Christie’s.”

He lamented the non-existence of a developed second-hand market for haute horlogerie, like in the Far East, where you can walk into authentic shops and buy certified used timepieces with buyback guarantee.

“There is a second-hand market here revolving around the Gold Souq, but no certified shops. They do sell second-hand watches, but you cannot be 100 per cent sure about the quality. They sometimes do modifications,” he said.

A second-hand market for high-end timepieces would go a long way in inculcating awareness about watches and in inspiring young collectors, so Abdul Hamied is thinking about opening an exclusive used watch outlet. “But I have been too busy to push it. We are thinking about a shop, maybe with a different name, to provide the customers with certified and genuine watches. Quality will be controlled by us by cleaning, polishing and restoring the used watches in our own workshops. This is our plan for the next year when we expand our workshop,” he revealed.

Abdul Hamied said the love for watches here is not as intense as in other world capitals but it is growing. He said the need of the hour is to educate people as majority are ignorant about watches. “We take a lot of people — collectors as well as customers — to Switzerland to show them the painstaking process behind watchmaking. Watchmaking is like building construction, where you have to have a drawing. Watchmaking also requires precision drawing — for the case, for the dial, for the movement, etc. Many people don’t know the brainstorming that goes into the making of a watch.”

“After we started to take people on the education tour, customers know why they have to wait six months to one year for a watch. The GPHG (Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève), with its touring exhibition, is also contributing to the awareness campaign,” Abdul Hamied explained.

WATCHES ARE FOREVER

He doesn’t think the digital onslaught the world witnesses today will one day kill off the watch business. Watches will continue to tick despite the influx of smartphones or any other devices that do the time keeping, he said, pointing out that even electronics firms like Apple and Samsung are now offering wrist watches.

And no way will all these impact mechanical watches. They will always have a place in the world. “The main problem the industry faces is an acute shortage of watchmakers. When we sell watches today, we need to keep people to service them. Some companies, like in India and America, have started schools for watchmakers. The young generation does not want to enter the field as they think watchmaking is a mean job,” he lamented. “But some watch lovers opt to become watchmakers even in the later part of their life. I know one civil engineer who is now working with me as a watchmaker.”

Abdul Hamied intends to run a small watchmaking school when he expands his workshop in Dubai next year. “When the workshop becomes double the size next year, we plan to offer repairing of all brands and restoring of old models there. If some people want to become a watchmaker, we will welcome them. We plan to run a small school in the workshop.”

suresh@khaleejtimes.com