On a September evening when many of Pakistan’s 165 million people were breaking their fast during the holy month of Ramadan, billionaire Mian Mohammad Mansha, the country’s richest man, was deciding whether to buy an Indonesian bank.A phone call to his Lahore office interrupted him: Turn on the television, his son Hassan implored. The Marriott Hotel in Islamabad was in flames after terrorists had detonated a truck packed with explosives. The blast, in a security zone less than a kilometer from the presidential residence, killed 53 and injured 266.“It was terrifying,” says Mansha, 61, chairman of the Nishat Group financial, textile and cement-making empire, who says he stays at the Marriott when he’s in the capital. Just hours before the blast, Asif Ali Zardari, had vowed to rid the country of the “cancer” of terrorism. As Pakistan battles extremist-inspired violence and its worst economic crisis in a decade, Mansha says he’s keeping Nishat Group’s expansion on track.At home, where his MCB Bank Ltd. is the biggest lender by market value, he was in talks in October to buy a rival he declines to name. He’s looking at four banks in Indonesia, the only country with a bigger Muslim population than Pakistan.
By May, he’ll open a machinery and automobile leasing company in Azerbaijan, a predominantly Muslim country between Iran and Russia. He’s eyeing Kazakhstan and the Mideast for banking. And he’s also looking at Canada, with a Pakistani community estimated at more than 300,000 people.Mansha started building in the decades of upheaval that followed Pakistan’s split with India after their independence from Britain in 1947. Now he’s taking a cue from entrepreneurial Indians. Billionaire Mukesh Ambani, chairman of Reliance Industries Ltd., and Ratan Tata, chairman of Tata Group, expanded as India grew at an average annual rate of 8.8 percent in the five years ended on March 31, 2008.Pakistan almost kept pace with its larger neighbor: Its gross domestic product rose at an average of 7 percent during the five years that ended on Dec. 31, 2007.
“I want to be the first Pakistani, like some of our counterparts in India, to really go out and show that we Pakistanis can even be successful outside Pakistan,” Mansha says two days after the Marriott bombing. Mansha is optimistic during a dire period for Pakistan.Mansha says escalating tensions between Pakistan and India would be disastrous for the region. “I still strongly believe in detente between India and Pakistan and opening up trade facilities,” he said in a telephone interview on Nov. 28. “That will lead to a situation where misunderstandings will become less between the two countries. I would urge our leaders not to waver from what has to be done. The relationships have to be strengthened.
”Mansha cautioned that harm would come from backtracking on progress the countries have made in their ties. “If we do get into a defensive mode again or closing our minds, that will serve the terrorists,’’ he said. “We need to have courage and move forward.’’The exchange imposed trading curbs on Aug. 28, preventing shares from dropping below their Aug. 27 levels. Inflation jumped to a 30-year high of 25.3 percent in August, and the Pakistani rupee plunged to a record 83.40 to the dollar in October. All of that came on top of the global financial crisis. Europe and Japan fell into recession in the third quarter.Mansha, who estimates his fortune at about $4 billion, says the world’s economic woes are making companies cheaper for people like him who have money to spend. He added to his purse in May by selling 20 percent of MCB Bank to Malaysia’s Malayan Banking Bhd. for $907 million. That gives him about $1 billion for takeovers in the next 12 months.
Mansha isn’t a typical meeting-going executive. He hashes out deals on his mobile phone, often while walking alone in a park across the street from the Lahore home he shares with his wife, Naz, and his three U.S.-educated sons and their families.“He maintains a low profile, and his people are guided to be the same,” says Muhammad Farid Alam, chief executive officer of AKD Securities Ltd., one of Pakistan’s largest brokerages. If Mansha doesn’t identify himself, people may not recognize him, Alam says.
Comments