Investing through mutual funds and its benefits

In an article, I have written about benefits of diversification. But small investors face the problem of spreading out their small investing capital across different industries. If you are small investor you cannot diversify effectively owing to variety of factors like having to pay service fees like brokerage commission, minimum investment to be made in one particular security.

The solution to above mentioned problems can be solved by investing through mutual funds. Mutual funds are investment vehicle made up of pool of moneys collected by large number of investors for the purpose of investing in securities, bonds and other financial markets instruments.

There are many benefits of investing through mutual fund. When you invest through mutual funds, you get to enjoy the benefits of diversification. Your mutual fund asset manager has enough capital to invest across variety of assets, hence delivering you the benefit of diversification.

Another benefit of investing through such vehicle is enjoying economies of scale. Your fund can bargain discounted prices for investments. Moreover, other favorable terms can also be agreed because of increased collective bargaining power.

Your fund manager is a professional manager who has learnt about investing through experience and university learning. He is therefore better able to manage your money in a professional style. He can diversify using various statistical techniques. The third advantage of investing through mutual funds is being able to use the skills of professional manager.

There are as many as 40 mutual funds registered with SECP. You can invest in any of the funds mirroring your preferred style of investing.

Some of the funds use aggressive style of investing. They try to generate more returns but the down side is that they are more risky. Some others are income funds, which target generating regular income along with securing your capital.

There are sector funds which invest in specific geographical territory or specific industry e.g. energy mutual funds invest only in stocks and bonds of energy companies. They don’t invest in other industries. As a fund become more specific towards particular territory or industry, its ability to diversify reduces. Try to invest in funds which have consistent track record of generating returns. Although the returns generated by mutual funds are dependent on performance of stock markets.   

There are two types of funds 1. Open ended mutual funds 2. Closed ended mutual funds

Open ended funds are available over the counter and bought and sold on demand. Their net asset value (NAV) is calculated at the end of every trading day whereas closed ended funds are those which are only available on the stock market and has fixed number of shares.

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.

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.                                                                                                            

Growing international demand for Paksitani halal food

Keeping in view the growing international halal food market, Fauji meat limited has set up 75 million USD halal abattoir and meat processing plant, in Karachi.  This 47 acre spread facility has daily production capacity of 100 ton meat, of which 85 tons would be beef, in both chilled and frozen categories.

Halal food is the one which is prepared and is hygienic, in accordance with the principles of Sharia.

The demand for halal products is growing at a 10.8% annually, and is expected to reach 3.7 trillion dollars till 2019. Halal food makes up the largest share of this halal products industry.

Pakistan, is ideally located, to take benefit of this opportunity as consumers in gulf countries have huge liking for Pakistani halal stuff, especially the meat.

With 2nd largest buffalo and 8th largest cattle herd, Pakistan is endowed with valuable live stock. In mutton category Pakistan has 4th largest goat herd and has 9th largest number of sheep in the world. India, situated at the border, has earned more than 4.7 billion dollars from exports of buffalo meat in the fiscal year ended in 2015.

FPCCI president Abdul Rauf Alam, while talking to a private newpaper, said that world leading suppliers for halal products including high quality meat, poultry, dairy products and other foods are Australia, Brazil, Canada, Indonesia, India, Malaysia, Philippines,  Thiland, New Zealand and United States. He further added that USA and Australia are biggest halal beef exporter while Brazil and France are the largest halal poultry meat exporter in the Middle East.

Thailand has become 5th largest global halal food producer.

With more than 700 billion dollar market size halal food is expected to attract 2 billion consumers, both Muslim and non-Muslim.

Global market size for halal food is more than 700 billion U.S. dollars

Businesses around the world have started producing halal food to reduce costs. The daily Mail online in this report said that many major Supermarket chains and restaurants, in U.K., sell halal meat to keep their costs low as it can be eaten by both Muslims and non-Muslims alike

Fauji meat is eyeing lucrative foreign markets but equally important is to market these branded and packaged products to domestic consumer as well. This will not only be good for Fuji meat in long term but also for Pakistan’s halal meat industry.

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.

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

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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.

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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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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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Pakistanis in retail and wholesale sector worldwide

Pakistan is 6^th most populous country in the world. This country is having huge growing middle class. Size of retail and wholesale market is above 40 billion us dollars per annum. To benefit from this huge sector many international retail and wholesale companies have moved in Pakistan. Metro cash and carry, makro, hyperstar etc. are some names that are active in Pakistan’s retail and wholesale sector. 

Although Pakistan has huge retail sector, but still Pakistan has not produced any international chain of supermarkets. The size of majority of retailers is small and competition among them is tough. Retail sector contribute very little to state exchequer despite having a large share in GDP. Total contribution to state exchequer is approximately 125 million rupees while 50 million is contributed by canteen store department, chain of retail outlets managed by defense ministry.
Pakistan has huge diaspora. nearly 7 million Pakistanis are living in different countries of the world. there are nearly 1 million Pakistanis in united states. In United Kingdom nearly .7 million Pakistanis are living.

Many Pakistani businessmen abroad are involved in retail and wholesale business. This is because Retail business doesn’t needs a person to have any experience or specified level of education. Many Pakistani owns convenience stores abroad. The US convenience store market is monopolized by Pakistanis and Indians. In United Kingdom many Pakistanis are active in retail and wholesale sector. E.g. Pak supermarket is owned by Khalid Hussain. United wholesale grocer was owned by Muhammad Sarwar and his brother Muhammad Ramzan. Sir Anwer Pervaiz owns Bestway cash and carry. Najib Khan owns food retailing business in United Kingdom. Syed Qamar Reza owns 12 outlet of retail24 in United Kingdom.

Pakistanis are not only active in retail sector of USA and UK but also Middle Eastern countries. Abdul Razzaq Yaqoob owns chain of jewelry outlets. He also has started ARY cash and carry.