How Sugar industry can help ease Pakistan's energy crisis

Taking too much sugar may be bad for your health, but not for your country. Sugar industry can help ease the energy crisis faced by Pakistan for more than a decade.

The energy shortage is growing with ever increasing population and rising domestic consumption.  The production gap can be met by mobilizing sugar mills to produce electricity. The bagasse produced by sugar mills can be used to produce thermal energy for onsite use as well as production of electricity.

In many countries of the world sugar mills are earning more from selling electricity than they earn from selling sugar. Sugar industry is second largest, with 89 mills; agro based industry of Pakistan after textile and therefore offers tremendous potential to fill the energy gap.

A sugar mill crushing 2000 tons cane can produce 9 MW of electricity after meeting its own requirement. The total estimated power potential of Pakistan’s sugar industry is 2000MW. The cost of producing electricity is very low as the fuel (bagasse) is available at no cost. The raw material need not to be transported so considerable savings can be made on transportation head. Transportation losses can also be reduced as bagasse power plants are decentralized. Moreover, there is zero carbon dioxide emission as bagasse is a biomass. During combustion biomass re-releases carbon dioxide into the air.

Most of the sugar mills in Pakistan use bagasse to heat inefficient boilers of 26bar. The Indian sugar industry is using 50bar boilers, which uses half as much bagasse as used by 26bar boiler to produce the same megawatts of energy.

The high pressure boiler (80-100bar) available in Pakistan cost from 700 million rupees to 1 billion rupees. The high investment involves make it unfeasible for using these boilers only for 120 days, the cane crushing season. For the rest part of the year sugar industry wants to utilize coal and other biomass fuels like rice bran, corn cobs.

Who owns PSL cricket teams

Pakistan is a cricket loving nation. The cricket matches between Pakistan and India are biggest sports event and therefore good business opportunity for sponsors.

Pakistanis use to spend a lot of time on watching the game as it is long game unlike football.

Pakistan Cricket Board in its effort to reintroduce international cricket in Pakistan, established Pakistan Super League (PSL). PSL is a single entity and has five cricket teams as its franchises. The commercial rights to the initial franchises were sold for PKR 9.85 billion ( 91.4 million $) for a span of 10 years in December 2015. The first session, held in 2016, yielded 2.6 million $ in profit.

Owners of these teams are:-

Karachi Kings is owned by ARY Media Group. ARY Media Group is owned by  Salman Iqbal, whose net income for year is 90 million$.¹ Karachi King was sold to ARY Media Group for a period of 10 years, from December 2015, for 26 million$, thus making it the most expensive PSL team.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

Lahore Qalandars are owned by Qatar Lubricants Company limited (QALCO). QALCO is the only state-of-the-art lubricants blending plant in Qatar. This company is headed by Rana Fawad. It is the second most expensive team after Karachi Kings and was priced at 24 million $ in December 2015.

Peshawar Zalmi was sold to Haier Paksitan for 10 year period against 16 million US dollars. Javed Afridi is the CEO of Haier Pakistan. Haier Pakistan is subsidiary of Haier Group Corporation based in China.

Quetta Gladiators is owned by Omar Associates, a Karachi based company. The company was founded in 1969. Nadeem Omar is presently the CEO of the company. The group was basically a construction company but now the group is planning to enter into mining sector. The group acquired the franchise for 11 million$.

Islalmabad United Leonine Global Sports won the bid for franchise rights of Islamabad United for a decade against 15 million$. Leonine Global Sports is owned by venture capital firm Leonine Global which is based in UAE. The sports entity Leonine Global Sports also owns a franchise team in Hong Kong T20 League. The venture capital firm is owned by Ali Naqvi.  Ali Naqvi is a renowned businessman having business interests in different countries.

Related links

1. Salman Iqbal

2.    Islamabad United 

3. Ali Naqvi

What are REITs and how they work.

They knew it or not but when group of merchants raised money for the Boston pier in 1772, they were early pioneers of vehicle called REIT. The financing structure for the pier – merchants owned the land together and shared the rent-after 250 years has become an important way for investors to earn hefty returns.

The idea behind REIT is simple raise money from investors, buy property and share more than 90% of its earnings back to investors. REITs have become an active tool to avoid taxes. Many businesses started taking advantage of this structure and arranged themselves as REITS.

Empire state building owned by Empire State Realty Trust is one such building. The massive revenues generated by visitors and rental income are distributed to the investors.

REITs take money from retail investors, pool it and then invest it in real estate and related projects. Real estate is capital intensive business and pooled funds enable individual investors to own piece of lucrative real assets, much bigger than they could manage or afford on their own. Apart from pooling of funds REITs also offers investors the benefit of economies of scale.  

Furthermore, owning real assets through REITs keep you away from hassle of managing your property. The collection of rent and maintenance is outsourced to REIT.

The dearth of available options and illiquidity in realty sector makes REITs an attractive option for small investors.

Investing in REITs is like investing in real economy, unlike stock and bonds. REITs are considered good alternative to bond markets and is considered to move in opposite direction to stock market.

REITs are also tax-efficient structure as they are treated as pipes, structure whose returns are only taxed in the hands of investors. Its tax efficient character is major attraction for many businesses to register themselves as REITs.

These are more liquid than other forms of investments and attract new classes of investors. Moreover they allow industrial companies and insurers to realize the value of properties lying idle on their books.

Till date there are 05 REITs management companies operating in Pakistan.  The number of REITs and asset under management is abysmally low. The number can be compared with more than 40 mutual funds for the stock market, worth capitalization of 75 billion $. Real estate market is worth a lot more than that and even then there are only two REITs available to investors.

Although Real estate took a nosedive after imposition of transaction tax on the sector in the last budget, but it rebounded quickly owing to host of reasons.

Real estate can offer tremendous growth to investors because of CPEC impetus, Trump effect and rising unemployment of workers in Saudi Arabia, home to some 2 million Pakistani workers.

Realty is a save venue for parking untaxed wealth, and therefore expected to grow upward. Moreover, the development in Gwadar would help Pakistan become a transport hub for international trade, which would increase property prices beyond the present level.

Commercial as well as residential property market is facing shortage of supply. It is expected that in 2025 Pakistan will be facing shortage of 20 million housing units. The pooling of funds from savers and using it for development of residential and commercial spaces will be a lucrative option for entrepreneurs and investors at the same time offering living and working spaces to growing population. The growing cement and construction sector will have excess capacity after the completion of CPEC and it would be viable option to use that capacity for construction. 

Cherat Cement announced expansion plan

Cherat Cement, on Monday, announced it would install a third cement production line at its existing site in Nowshera. Cement manufacturers are announcing expansion plans in the wake of growing cement demand.

CPEC is expected to generate additional cement demand of 1.5-3 million tons per annum

The new plant is expected to have an annual production capacity of 2.1 million tons, taking the company’s total output to 4.5 million tons a year. The company’s total production capacity is about 10% of the current installed production capacity in Pakistan.

The company was already working on its second production line, expected to have capacity 1.3 million tons. This plant is expected to come online in the second half of fiscal year 2016-17.

Cherat Cement Company Limited (CHCC) was established in 1981. CHCC started manufacturing, marketing and sale of Ordinary Portland Cement in 1985. At that time, the company had the production capacity of 1,100 tons per day, which was increased to 3,300 tons per day in 2005 after subsequent up gradations earlier.

The company supplies cement to the northern block; Punjab, KP, FATA and adjoining areas and exports its cement to Afghanistan and Indian Punjab. The company’s plant is strategically located, about 52 kilometers away from Peshawar, near the Pak Afghan border and this proximity to the border allows for lower distribution costs than its competitors.

Cherat Cement’s latest expansion plan will be entirely financed by debt, costing close to Rs13 billion, according to JS Research. This production line may become operational by year 2020. The company also intends to bring another Waste Heat Recovery along with the new line, according to the JS Research report.

The establishment of its first Waste Heat Recovery (WHR) in 2010, a Tyre Derived Fuel Processing Plant in 2012 and a Refuse Derived Fuel Processing Plant in 2013 helped company achieve fuel efficiency—now company is deriving more than one-third of its energy free of costs.                                                                                                            

Foreign investment in Pakistan: boon or bane?

In the last couple of days, Pakistan has witnessed an increase in foreign investment. Many local companies were acquired by foreign multinationals. Dawlance, Pakistan’s white goods manufacturer was acquired by Turkish group Arçelik . Furthermore, in the same week a Dutch based dairy cooperative FrieslandCampina acquired stakes in Engro for around $460 million.

This shows that international investors are viewing Pakistan as a growing market. Its huge population provides huge consumer base. The rise in middle class along with young population makes it attractive location for investment.  Many European countries are having population as much as Pakistan has graduates.

But is there any benefit to the nation of these huge investments from multinationals. In a nutshell we would say yes. But on a deep analysis we would say it is hard to say anything precise unless we take into account other factors.

Let us assume that Turkish group would enhance the quality of the products, manufactured by Dawlance, and would make them attractive to export markets. Definitely, in this case it would be good for Pakistan. Multinational companies have huge research and development departments with billions of dollars in budget which helps them in developing new and better products. Small companies like local ones cannot expend that much on research and development. Furthermore, small companies have issues with protecting patent rights. Hence, from this particular angle it is good that foreign companies are making inroads into Pakistani market.

With better quality and increased foreign clients’ satisfaction, country would be able to earn foreign exchange. This would also help Pakistan to move from exporter of low-tech to exporter of high-tech products.

The ability of multinationals to get a better deal from Govt. in matters of tax rebates is another thing to ponder. In countries like Pakistan, Govt. rules are more favorable to foreign big investors rather than local small investors. The exemption of duties and taxes extended to Chinese companies working on CPEC is one such example.

Exemptions in taxes make it more likely for these companies to earn heavy profits and pay high salaries to its employee. This would mean more and high paying jobs for locals as well as better employee retention for the multinational companies.

But there are more cases in which these companies hire foreign people than local ones. This would mean snatching jobs which could be provided by local companies to local people. Moreover, huge portion of profit earned, through getting tax rebates, by these companies is repatriated back to their country of origin.

Thus foreign investment is good for host country if it leads to transfer of technology; increase in exports, provides employment to local ones, pays taxes and duties to host country Govt. and improves quality of manufactured goods.

State of Internet industry

Recently Facebook has acquired the whatsapp for reportedly 19 billion us dollars. This massive figure acquisition has made the silicon based founders of whatsapp billionaire. Both the founder Jan Koum and Brian Acton has become the owner of massive fortunes. According to the estimates the worth of Jan Koum is 6.8 billion dollars while Brian Acton has become the owner of 3 billion us dollars. These new billionaires are the recent example of the possibilities of the cyber world.

Global phenomenon

The sudden rise of billionaires in the internet industry is the first phenomenon of its type. Owing to zero marginal cost in the internet industry, the number of millionaires in internet industry is rising at an increasing pace.

The rise in the number of internet super rich is global phenomenon and for past some decade many billionaires have risen to the scene including the facebook billionaires. Google and yahoo founders were the first internet billionaires. They organized the information present on the internet, and paved the way for future genius to become successful internet entrepreneurs.

Later on billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook), Jeff Bezos(Amazon), Masayoshi Son (Softbank), Pierre Omidyar (Ebay), Robin Li(Baidu), Mark Cuban (broadcast), and many others rose to the status of billionaire. As the number of billionaires rose same was the case of millionaires. These online super rich are generally young.

New opportunities for entrepreneurs are arising owing to increase in number of internet users. Internet not only provides opportunities to entrepreneurs but also has become a tool for social change.

Arab spring in the Middle Eastern countries is an example of the change brought by the internet.

Middle East

The Middle Eastern region has recently seen Arab spring. This Arab spring is attributed to the advent of internet technology. Although the society has seen an evolution but number of cyber entrepreneurs is very small. It will take time for many of the Middle Eastern people to enjoy startup spring along with the Arab spring.

The only country that has sizeable number of internet entrepreneurs is Jordan. It has proved itself to be the hub for technology startups of the region. From many of small internet firms to Maktoob, a Jordanian internet portal, were started in Jordan. Maktoob proved to be an inspiration for many young entrepreneurs of the region, as it was later acquired by Yahoo for as much as 175 million us dollars.

Many Middle Eastern internet entrepreneurs want to serve Saudi market, the juicy market of the region, because of its huge population of 28 million. Saudi Arabia is the largest economy of the region and rich consumer base having money to spend along with good internet connectivity. This makes Saudi Arabia ideal market for the regions internet entrepreneurs.

Like Saudi Arabia, other Middle Eastern countries are also close to intense outside competition, owing to language barrier.

Pakistan

Unlike majority of the regions’ countries, Pakistan has no such barrier of language, as Pakistanis can speak and understand English. Thus the large population of Pakistan can prove to be the large consumer base for the internet companies from around the globe. This already has happened in case of Facebook, Google, and many other online companies. Number of Facebook users in the country has already touched the mark of 10 million.

The rising number of internet users can be an opportunity for country’s entrepreneurs. As majority of people who uses internet are from young strata of the society so is the case of internet entrepreneurs.

There are number of success stories of Pakistani entrepreneurs

Investorguide360, for example, is a Pakistani financial portal. It was Asia’s fastest growing financial portal before its acquisition by AMZ MAK Capital Limited. AMZ MAK Capital Limited is a partnership between Aref Mohammed AlZarouni and Mir Mohammad Ali Khan.

The interest by the investors speaks volume about their confidence in the startups. Recently a Frenchman has made an investment in Pakistani real estate portal Zameen.com. The terms of the agreements were not disclosed although the investment in this portal was confirmed by the investor, Gilles Blanchard. Earlier Mr. Blanchard was associated with SeLoger.com as its co founder. SeLoger.com is French leading real estate portal.

The trend of getting foreign investment started when Monis Rahman, founder of Pakistan’s premier online recruiting website Rozee.pk, got first round of investment from Silicon Valley based venture capital funds, Draper Fisher Jurvetson and ePlanet Capital. Today Rozee.pk is used by more than 16 million professionals for their job search and is used by as much as 54000 employers.

Though Monis Rahman was the trend setter by becoming the first venture fund backed entrepreneur, in Pakistan, it was Abid Beli who first successfully started commercial online venture by starting beliscity.com. Later on his site was sold.

As the trend of blogging is increasing in Pakistan, more and more successful startups will surface. Though presently there are many problems faced by entrepreneurs in starting their own hi-tech ventures. One major problem is lack of financing sources as there is no developed venture capital fund industry. Venture capital funds are more likely to invest in new technology companies. It is owing to this reason that venture capital funds have become synonymous to technology financing.

Related links.

Whatsapp billionaire

Middle Eastern startups

Zameen.com investment

Tycoon once again spells the magic.

Malik Riaz signed an agreement with His Highness Sheikh Nahyan to construct world’s tallest building in Karachi. The project will be worth 45 billion us dollars. Of the total 45 billion US dollars 10 billion US dollars will be invested in Lahore and Islamabad and other 35 billion US dollars will be invested in Sind. In addition to the tallest building sports club, educational and media city will also be constructed. The project also includes construction of miniature of Seven Wonders of the World. Construction project will boost 55industries including cement industry, bricks industry, electrical industry, iron and steel industry and glass industry. The project also encompasses generation of electricity from sea water. According to the statement the project will provide employment to 2.5 million people.

Nahyan is Chairman Abu Dhabi group, which is largest foreign investing group in Pakistan. The group has its investment tin many sectors of the economy. Bank Al Falah, Warid and Wateen Telecom companies etc are some big names that are owned by the Abu Dhabi group. Sheikh Nahyan is also recipient of Pakistani highest civilian award hallal e Pakistan.

Malik Riaz is a Pakistani tycoon who is the founder of Bahria Town. Malik Riaz has completed this project as an example for the country’s real estate developers. As much as 100000 families are dependent on bahria town for their livelihood. He belonged to a business family. At a young age the Business of his family was collapsed and he was forced to start his practical life as a clerk in Military Engineering Service. Then he started his entrepreneurial career as a small government contractor and achieved unprecedented success as a businessman.

Malik riaz is famous for his remarkable quality of maintaining good relations with many important political personalities even when they are at daggers drawn with each other. He also enjoys cordial relationship with many in military and civilian establishment of Pakistan.

Malik Riaz is a great philanthropist as well. He helped flood affectees and provided ransom for the freedom of Pakistani hostages from Somali pirates. 

According to the Newsweek the net worth of the tycoon is around 6 billion us dollars. These days his son takes care of the Bahria Town as its CEO.

Malik Riaz has started and completed many projects ancillary to Bahria Town in collaboration with many international and foreign contractors in order to provide world class residential facilities to the residents of Bahria Town. Malik riaz has brought Thomas Kramer as well as Sultan Nahyaan to invest in Pakistan along with him.

Thomas Kramer is leading global networker and an entrepreneur, who has to his credit major construction projects around the world, including Miami Beach, in USA. He has a net worth of 90 million us dollars. He is working on many large scale projects including a mixed use tower in Germany, mega development project in Brazil including a five star hotel etc.
related link

Wikipedia

jang
the news

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.

Related Links

allworld

money matters jang

Acquisition by Abu Dhabi Group

Abu Dhabi group has reacquired 100 percent stakes in Warid Telecom. The group has expanded its operation by buying Singapore telecommunication limited’s share. Earlier According to SingTel, Warid would be sold for a loss of approximately186 million us dollars. SingTel acquired 30 percent shares in warid, in 2007, at the price of 758 million us dollars. 

Warid started its operation, in Pakistan, in 2005. Bashir Tahir led the team for bidding and acquiring license for operating telecom network.

By acquiring 30 percent shares in phone operator the group has become the sole owner of the telecom company. The group has the owner of being single largest foreign investor in Pakistan. Abu Dhabi group already has diverse and huge investments in different sectors of Pakistan’s economy. The group has heavy stakes in banking, agriculture, energy, real estate, hospitality and health care. Investments by the group include Bank Alfalah, Warid telecom, Wateen telecom, Alfalah Securities (Pvt.) ltd, Alfalah GHP investment management limited, United Bank Limited, and Al Razi healthcare.

The group is led by Sheikh Nahayan Mabarak al Nayhan, member of the royal family of Emirate.

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

Iqbal Zafaruddin Ahmed

Iqbal Zafaruddin Ahmed is a Pakistani entrepreneur and philanthropist. His business group, Associated group, was founded by Iqbal and his father. It was 1965 when they laid the foundation of this energy group.

Today his group has become the largest producer, transporter and marketer of liquefied petroleum gas in private sector. The member companies of this group are jamshoro joint venture limited, lub gas, mehran LPG, Pakistan Gasport limited, AG omnimedia, AG publications, and associated estate developer. This group has revenues in excess of 200 million us dollars.

The group has extended its interest in the media and property development by launching AG omni media, AG publications, and associated estate developer.

Iqbal Zafaruddin Ahmed is a self made businessman who started business at the young age of 16. He was born in Patna, India to Z. Z. Ahmed, who later becomes deputy inspector general police (Pakistan). Iqbal Ahmed has been featured in Newsweek international and Forbes. His family has produced lawyers, judges, politician, and bureaucrats. Some leading names from his family include moulvi Ziauddin Ahmed, first Indian to serve as DIG (deputy inspector general) Bombay sindh presidency. Pakistan’s ambassador Riazzuddin. Former (Pakistani) Supreme Court Justice Sabihuddin Ahmed was his cousin.

Mr. Iqbal played an important role in improving Pakistan US relations.

related links

wikipedia

forbes 

Textile Industry and Foreign Exchange Earnings.

Textile industry is Pakistan’s largest industry. It employees nearly 15 million people out of about 49 million workforce. Its share in GDP of the country is 8.5%. Majority of Pakistan’s exports are textile products and are exported to EU or USA. Pakistan’s share in international trade of textile is less than 1%.

Textile industry is a low tech industry. Companies involved in this sector do not pay much attention to research and development.

As a result of its being low tech., there is a strong competition among developing countries for the textile markets of the developed world. This makes these countries vulnerable to any fall in demand in the developed world. There are strong trends of deteriorating terms of trade against textile dependent nations. As these countries generally import machinery while export textile products.

The low ability of textile industry to earn foreign exchange leads them to have huge volumes of external debts. The instability of their currencies makes the situation worse by increasing the debt burden of these nations. As a result, balance of payment difficulties and huge fiscal deficit become a frequent problem for these nations.

The balance of payment and fiscal deficit problems leads them to borrow more from external donors. This borrowing hinders the economic growth of these countries as these loans have to be repaid. These underdeveloped countries have huge workforce which needs job opportunity. Lack of economic activity creates unrest among masses. This undermines the democratic process of these countries and military has to intervene from time to time. This happened in Pakistan, turkey, Bangladesh, Indonesia etc. 

Saltflow, Inc.

Saltflow, inc. is a conglomerate and has stakes in diverse fields. Saltflow was founded in 2005 by Arif Ayub, a Pakistani national. This group is based in Dubai, UAE.

Saltflow has annual revenues in excess of $570 million annually. Group is involved in a number of fields including construction industry, trade and retail industry, and technology industry. Group has expanded its presence to North America through acquisitions.

Group’s technology business is heavily centered in Russia and controls internet companies primarily targeted at mobile and financials solutions for consumers.

In North America group has stakes in retail and trade sector. Group has invested huge amounts in retail brands and is expecting good returns.

Group also has stakes in construction industry.

Presently group provides employment to more than 500 people.

related link 

Saltflow, Inc.

Sadeq Saeed, a Pakistani banker

Sadeq Sayeed is a prominent Pakistani banker and electrical engineer. Presently he is serving London based hedge fund firm, Metage Capital Limited, as its chairman.

Sayeed was born in Pakistan and went to United States for studies. He took admission in Massachusetts Institute of Technology undergraduate programme in economics with concentration in electrical engineering. Later he also got his master in finance from the MIT.

He started his active professional life at the age of 23 by joining World Bank. His assignments in World Bank include working as research associate and internal consultant.

Later in 2000 he joined Nomura group, a Japanese financial conglomerate. Before joining Nomura he also served Credit Suisse First Boston, an investment banking division of Credit Suisse group.

At retirement from Nomura, he is reported to have received severance package amounting to 34 million us dollars.

In Pakistan he along with shaukat tareen, former Pakistani finance minister, led consortium which acquired controlling stakes in Saudi pak commercial bank. Later Saudi pak commercial bank was renamed as Silk Bank Limited.

Netsol, software company from Pakistan

NetSol is a Pakistani software company. It was a small company started by three brothers in Lahore with 5 people. But now it has been registered at NASDAQ USA and employees more than 800 people. NetSol technologies is only company in Pakistan to have focused on certification. It is one of the hundred companies which have acquired CMMI level 5 certification. This is one of the reasons of its success because consumer is short of time and can trust the product developed by certificate companies.

NetSol technologies begin its operation in 1995 and got a major break through in 1996 when it got first major offshore contract with Mercedes Benz, Thailand. Since then it is receiving orders from many international clients.

Its product achieved world wide acclaim and some of its products are NetSol financial suit, e-CIB (electronic credit information bureau), etc. NetSol technologies has offices in different countries including United States, United Kingdom and Australia. It's headquarter is in California USA. In 2008 it has earned revenue of 37 million us dollars.

related link 

wikipedia

propakistani 

 

Internet Business

Recently Facebook went public. Its value is above 100 billion us dollars. There are many internet companies that went public and are enormously valued. But still majority of internet companies are private. Majority of these companies are built by people aged less than 40, like Mark Zuckerberg. Well known Cook family has started many internet businesses including the myYearbook. Internet offers enormous opportunity to entrepreneurs.  The fact is that internet has given rise to the global economy that has no borders. You can provide your services to different people of the world, belonging to different continents.

The best side of internet business is that there is practically zero marginal cost in this business. Secondly you do not need heavy infrastructure like transport, rails and roads, etc. this offers remarkable opportunity to entrepreneurs from third world countries. Monis Rehman is one such entrepreneur who started Rozee. It has been estimated to be worth more than 600000 us dollars. Scrybe Founder Faizan Buzdar has also made use of internet.

ChenOne, fashion retailer

ChenOne is Pakistan’s leading fashion retailer. It has retail outlets in Pakistan and Middle Eastern countries. ChenOne was established in 1997. The first ChenOne store was opened in Islamabad then another in Lahore. Since then there is no looking back. In all of the major cities of Pakistan there is ChenOne retail outlet. ChenOne offers fashion clothing, bed linen, foot wear, kitchen accessories and furniture.

ChenOne is brainchild of mian Muhammad Latif. He started this chain to provide international quality to customers at local prices. Initially it was planed to establish such stores in 14 different cities of Pakistan. ChenOne has four different departments to cater to the needs of their customers. Presently ChenOne has more then 20 stores.

ChenOne offers free home delivery and offers special discount. ChenOne has revenue of 24.5 million us dollars and earns profit of 1.3 million us dollars.

ChenOne has retail outlets in following places. ChenOne stores are located in Pakistan in the following places:

• Islamabad (Opened in 1997)
• Rahim Yar Khan (Opened in 1997)
• Lahore (Gulberg branch) (Opened in 1998)
• Faisalabad (Opened in 1998)
• Karachi (Opened in 1999)
• Rawalpindi (Opened in 2001)
• Peshawar (Opened in 2002)
• Abbottabad (Opened in 2004)
• Lahore (Defence branch) (Opened in 2004)
• Multan (Opened in 2005)
• Sialkot (Opened in 2006)
• Gujrat (Opened in 2006)
• Karachi (Tariq Road) (2008)
• Bhurban (Opened in 2008)
• Sargodha (Opened in 2009)
• Bahawalpur (Opened in 2009)

Outside of Pakistan, ChenOne has stores in the following places: ^[8]

• Abu Dhabi
• Dubai (Jumeriah)
• Makkah
• Bahrain
• Ajman
• Sharjah
• Riyadh (Olaya Road near to Kingdom Tower)

Chenone is owned by Chenab group. Mian Muhammad latif, with the worth of 700 million us dollars, is chairman Chenab group.

related link:

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mba marketing project report

wikipedia