RETAIL PEOPLE MAGAZINE ISSUE 27 - DISCOVERING NEW RETAIL CONCEPT

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Saudi Retailer Kamal Osman Jamjoom Buys Out Body Shop Stores in UAE All of The Body Shop stores in the UAE have been acquired by Kamal Osman Jamjoom (KOJ) Group, the retailer that owns the Nayomi, Moda, Mihyar, and Mikyajy brands. This follows the buyout of the distribution and physical store network from The Body Shop Stores (UAE). This is also one of the more significant deals to emerge in the local brick-andmortar space in the recent past. KOJ is already well acquainted with the UK beauty brand, having represented it in the western Saudi Arabia territory. “With this expansion into the UAE, we are thrilled to offer The Body Shop products to a broader customer base across the GCC, and to reinforce our successful partnership with The Body Shop International,” said Hisham Al Amoudi, Group CEO of KOJ. “We founded our company almost 35 years ago with the launch of The Body Shop

in eastern Saudi Arabia. This investment now makes us the largest franchise operation for The Body Shop International in the MENA market.”

Kamal Osman Jamjoom owns and operates 650 outlets across the region for its many brands. Source: Gulf News (https://bit.ly/3erih5t)

Virgin Hyperloop Eyes Commercial Pilot by 2024, Says CEO Virgin Hyperloop is targeting 2024 for the launch of its first commercial pilot systems, said the company’s new CEO.

“In future, it will be possible to cross the Gulf faster than Manhattan [New York],” Giegel added.

“We will deploy the working system and afterward the passenger systems will shortly come into play in the late 2020s,” Josh Giegel, Co-Founder told Arabian Business, adding that the first route may be launched in Saudi Arabia as “it’s a big market for us.”

Virgin says its technology – which would see pressurised trains travel though tunnels at the speed of aeroplanes – could eventually transport 50 million passengers per year across the Gulf.

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Travelling from Riyadh to Jeddah would take just 46 minutes with a hyperloop instead of one and a half hours by plane. In November, Virgin Hyperloop trialled its first journey with passengers in Nevada, US. In the trial, two passengers – one of which was Giegel – travelled a 500 metres test track in 15 seconds, reaching 172km per hour. Virgin is aiming to eventually run the trains at 1000km per hour. Source: Arabian Business (Read More: https://bit.ly/32LvxN0)


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