Pakistan's Logistic Giant

Agriculture sector contributes a lion share in Pakistan’s GDP. But presently Pakistan’s 40% agricultural produce is lost because of bad logistic infrastructure. And this company is experimenting with ways to provide logistic services to Pakistani agriculture sector with only three to four percent loss.

Starting from four employees, it now has over 400 people as its employs. With 700 customers including many national and multinational companies, it takes care of whole process of logistics including shipping, trucking and warehousing.

The company was started by Abid Butt in 2005, who earlier worked for a French logistic giant Geodis. At that time, in Pakistan, no one was available to provide end to end solution, so initial idea was to provide all services including trucking, warehousing and shipping etc by the same company. This led the company’s name being e2e supply chain management (pvt.) ltd. i.e. end to end supply chain management (pvt.) ltd. In 2011 butt’s company had around 76 million us dollars in annual revenues. The company grew 1918% from 2008 to 2010 and was nominated as Pakistan’s fastest growing private company by AllWorld network in 2012. Initial investment in e2e supply chain management (Pvt.) ltd. was arranged by him and his friend and was 1 million rupees (nearly 20000 us dollars at that time) each.

Company’s founder Abed butt is a LUMS graduate with a major in economics and also holds an MBA from INSEAD. After graduating from LUMS, Pakistan’s leading business school, Abid worked for Maersk. Later on he joined Geodis, and was posted in Paris.

He started his business from Karachi, Pakistan’s industrial and commercial heart. He started his entrepreneurial career by resigning from Geodis, risking a steady career growth. At that time he was making 15000 euros per month.

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Waste Management entrepreneur

Pakistan generates nearly 56000 tons of solid waste daily in urban areas only, and it is increasing at the rate of 2.4% annually. This solid waste is an opportunity for entrepreneurs.

This waste can be recycled, used to produce liquefied petroleum products, or electricity.  There are advanced waste-to-energy conversion technologies that are commercially viable and sustainable. Presently Fauji Cement Company is using municipal solid waste to produce electricity.

Garbage is not only a cheap source of producing electricity but it can also be used to produce fertilizers. It is profitably being converted to fertilizer by an entrepreneur from Lahore.

Asif Farooqi is a green entrepreneur. He is CEO of waste buster, a waste management company. He is the pioneer of the waste management business in Pakistan.

Some years earlier he started with 6 donkey carts that collected waste from house to house. Now his business waste buster has 200 garbage collection vehicle and employees 3000 people. His business is not only about making money but also conserving environment as well.

Mr. Farooqi informed in a report of al Jazeera that what started from six donkey carts has become a business employing three thousand people and all this money is generated from waste. His men collect garbage and other waste from narrow streets of Lahore and deliver to factory through garbage collection vehicles. His waste management plants separate garbage into organic, plastic and metals to produce liquefied petroleum products, and fertilizers for farmlands. 

Asif Farooqi holds masters degree in environmental engineering from northwestern university, USA with specialization in waste management. He has more than 20 years of experience in the field of environmental engineering. His company waste buster is based in Lahore. Many contracts have been won by the waste busters in Karachi and other cities of Pakistan.

 related links.

dawn

south asia investor review

al Jazeera

Pakistani people in private equity industry.

Private equity represents a class of investors, their funds, and their subsequent investments, which are made in private companies or public companies with the goal of taking them private.

Below are some notable Pakistani people from private equity industry around the globe.

1.      Riaz Siddiqi is a Founder and Managing Partner of Denham Capital, a private equity firm that manages over 4 billion dollars and invests in the commodity and energy sectors globally.

2.      Faysal Sohail is a venture capitalist and has served as a General Partner at CMEA Capital since 2002. 

3.      Wahid Hamid is a Senior Partner at Abraaj Capital and Head of Portfolio Management and Operations Group.

4.      Dr. Moeen Qureshi - Chairman of EMP Global, a multi-billion private equity fund; Former Prime Minister of Pakistan; Former CFO of World Bank

5.      Arif Naqvi is founder Abraaj Capital, a leading private equity firm that invests in Middle East and North Africa.

6.      Aamer A. Sarfraz is founder of Indus Basin Holding, a developer of agribusiness projects in Pakistan.

7.      James Caan is also the founder and currently CEO of the UK-based private equity firm Hamilton Bradshaw

8.      asad zain Founding Member at Manara Equity Partners

9.      Abdul Hafeez Sheikh, General Partner New Silk Route Partners (a private equity firm that invests in Asia and middle east)

10.  Sardar Sherazam Mazari. In May 2009, he established Rojhan Capital as Managing Partner, which is an investment and management company focused on Pakistan.

11. Asad Jamal of ePlanet Capital is global venture pioneer. He has offices in Asia, Europe, U.S. he led investments in many hi-tech firms including Baidu ( China’s google), HiSoft (information technology and business process outsourcing company headquartered in China), median technologies (cancer detection company based in France), SiliconFile Technologies(chips for cell phones and cameras, South Korea) 

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Success achieved by Pakistani bloggers.

Income diary has a post named ‘20 top blog sales’ that has a list of blogs that were sold for millions. In recent past a name of Pakistani blog appeared in ‘top earning blogs’ on incomediary. According to incomediary Saad Hamid’s blog Sizlopedia was making 11000 us dollars per month.

Blogging has become common in Pakistan and there are many successful bloggers in Pakistan. Recently another success has been achieved in this area by Pakistanis. Gagism.com, a humor blog, co-founded by Farrukh Zafar and Salman Saeed, has been acquired by an Australian firm for rupees 10 million (105000 us dollars approximately).  Presently gagism has a team of 6 members including two founders. 

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Founded by former income tax oficer

Interwood Mobel is Pakistan’s largest producer of wooden furniture. Interwood Mobel is founded and run by Farooq Malik, who is a former government employee at FBR. Interwood is manufacturer and retailer of furniture and owns retail outlet in many cities of the country. Presently this company is running 6 show rooms in Lahore, Karachi, and Islamabad. Nearly 1500 people are working for this company. Presently interwood is working with international household company Ikea. According to Farooq Malik profit margin is low but his company is learning a lot from Ikea.

The lifestyle of Interwood Mobel owner resembles that of Ikea owner Ingvar Kamprad. He lives in a rented house and owns an old car. He frequently attends exhibition in different countries and according to him he learns from these events. He is impressed with the creativity of Italian people.

Interwood Mobel was started when Mr. Malik was removed from government service. He started by making television cabinet, and then converted to manufacturing wooden doors. Meanwhile he was reinstated in previous job by government. After his retirement from government service as a 22 grade officer he started focusing on his business. Now his other family members have also joined him in this business.