I met Raja by chance in 2015 – he enquired about viewing a building in Glasgow I was selling. I have 25 years in this industry and a well-developed sense that quickly separates the dreamers from the serious. Raja was self-evidently in the camp of the latter and we formed a healthy rapport. He went on to get me involved with his expansion plans and since then we have completed sixteen transactions together – that’s an average strike rate of one every ten weeks, not bad!
Everything for which we have offered, we have completed within the agreed terms; it is a most refreshing – and dare I say it, old-fashioned and honourable – approach to business. As a result, Scotland is now almost replete with Costa Coffee outlets and I am very proud to have sourced the building that became the first Taco Bell in Scotland; we continue to work away on opening many more.
Being part of the team that has been assembled at the Adil Group is always high intensity, always fun and, most importantly of all, always successful. And that building he viewed in Glasgow? He never did buy it from me..