Who Owns Pakistan - Yimg
Who Owns Pakistan - Yimg
Who Owns Pakistan - Yimg
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also been assigned to the shelves on the Corporate Law Authority to<br />
gather dust and no reference is ever made to its findings. The estimates of<br />
H U Beg committee would seem grossly under-estimated in 1997 because<br />
of the massive growth in the private sector banking since 1993.<br />
In post-nationalization era of the 1970, the leading industrial families<br />
resorted to Double D strategy of dispersing and diversifying, taking pains<br />
to camouflage their identity. A very glaring example is the House of Habib<br />
which was reported to have 90 companies in its fold in 1984 but I could<br />
identify only half of them.<br />
The list of companies owned by the Ittefaq group, as found by the Beg<br />
committee included 19 companies with estimated assets of Rs 10 billion. I<br />
have identified at least 29 companies is this group. The efforts by big<br />
groups to cover their tracks are made easy by the absence of any law<br />
requiring them to disclose their assets, although for several years CLA has<br />
been toying with feasibility of requiring the groups to publish consolidated<br />
annual accounts.<br />
In additions to the assets held in their own groups, several of these<br />
leading industrialists also own equity in the blue chip multinationals over<br />
KSE. For example, Babar Ali is Chairman, Hoechest <strong>Pakistan</strong> Ltd,<br />
Siemens and Lever Brothers and Kasim Dada is Chairman of Burger<br />
Paints. Smithkline and Brook Bond Ltd holding upto 25% equity in these<br />
companies. However, the equity in the multinationals is not taken into<br />
considration while ranking them for this study.<br />
At least five groups namely Saigols, Nishat, the Hashoo group, Fateh and<br />
Habib have revealed in interviews and annual reports to have companies<br />
incorporated abroad. Thus Nasim Saigol has Kohinoor England, Nishat<br />
has Nishat Europe and Newbury Mansha (Pvt) Ltd, Sadaruddin Hashwani<br />
has Tempa Pak Ltd, Florida, Habib have AG Zurich and Habibsons while<br />
Fateh group have subsidiaries in Hong Kong and Germany. Evidently ,<br />
other groups too, must have incorporated companies abroad but no<br />
refrence is ever made to them in their profiles and reports.<br />
Lawrence J. White, in his book " The Industrial Concentration and Economic<br />
power in <strong>Pakistan</strong>" had estimated that on the eve of nationalization 43 groups or<br />
families owned 98 of the 197 non-financial companies listed on KSE, accounting<br />
for 53% of the total assets represented on the stock exchange.<br />
The tables on the next page give a comparative picture of the 22 families in<br />
1970, as found by Lawrence White, their position in 1990 as established by<br />
monthly Herald of June 1990 and their ranking in 1997 in WHO OWNS<br />
PAKISTAN?<br />
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