Mian Mansha is now Pakistan's first billionaire...

Biggest Private sector employer!!!!Man had the guts and the vision to be a billionaire, people should learn from the positive aspects of him....but some people have DACTRATE in finding faults and negatives.....why cant people have supermarket approach, buy what you need to buy and reject what you dont like.....Every country needs to have visionaries so that fault finders(like some people on this forum) can have a salaried job.....There is a saying "People always throw stones at only those trees that have fruits on them"

Burqa it's really funny to see people commenting on affairs for which they have no knowledge. Time has proven that privatization of banks in general and MCB in particular was the best thing done by our government.

During the privatization process of MCB Bank Tawakkal group was bidding against a group of 10 leading and Industrial groups of Pakistan. Tawakkal group was total fraud who used to thrive on collecting and distributing money Samad Dadabhoy style with no audit or known profitable business. On the other hand 10 leading industrial groups of Pakistan had a known management track record for years. Tawakkal incidentally was the highest bidder but the government of that time did not want to give this institution to fraud people like Tawakkal. There this group of 10 industrialist was asked to match the bid submitted by Tawakkal which they agreed to do. This procedure for privatization was later followed by all the subsequent governments where the best reputed group was always asked to match the highest bid. This was done to protect the institutions from going in to wrong hands.

At that time Mansha was just one of the 10 people in the group. Later over the years he bought the management shares in MCB at market price. The initial purchase of Mansha during the privatization was 1/10th of 25% share originally disinvested. Mansha over the years increased his share from less than 5% to over 42% mainly purchasing these shares at market price.

It may be noted that before the banks were privatized they used to give loans as political bribes and had huge NPLs (Non performing Loans). After privatization the NPLs are just a fraction of what they used to be. To give you an example, government had to inject 22 billlion rupees in UBL before privatization, to sell the bank for 14 billion to Al Nahayan/Bestway group. Same is the story with ABL and HBL which were sold to Sheikh Mukhtar group and Agha Khan respectively. There was no cash injection in MCB before privatization to compensate NPLs.

At the time of privatization the bank's market capitalization was less than 5 billion rupees, which is over 500 billion rupees today. MCB is by far the best run and most profitable bank with least NPLs in Pakistan today. Mansha's other businesses don't owe a penny to MCB...

@kickbehind..

You have posted an 18 year old article... lot of water has passed under the bridges. You need to update yourself my friend...

Mansha has US$ 1.0 billion of wealth, mostly invested in productive business in Pakistan. Don't you think hundreds of thousands of people who work for MCB, Nishat Mills, Adamjee Insurance, DG Khan Cement or many other companies are amongst the middle class of Pakistan.

When I was young, I saw several Amitabh Bachan movies where hero used to be a union leader and villain used to be a smuggler who used to run a factory as a side business. India has out grown this mentality, however it seems we are still stuck with the same.

People who generate business are the real heroes of any society. In USA Henry Ford, Bill Gates, Warren Buffet etc are text book subjects, while we call our heroes as chors... if we want to progress we have to give up this mentality...

I agree. But the real people became billionaire or richest people on earth had never short cuts or cunning and dishonest approach like this one. You have to go to foundation of anything if you want to understand what entities are today. You can not burry the recent past of such people. Empires build on dishonesty and corruption are dishonest and can not benefit the country. Pakistan can not sustain creating and praising thugs like him. Same rules can be applied to NS, Zaradari and Lard of Landan. If this thug is praiseworthy than other rich thugs are also praiseworthy. You can not have double standards.

Very Well said. Thank you.

Ignore these nay-sayers, they are just bunch of Socialists at best, or commie-lefties at worst.

Good examples.

But the commie lefties even in America hate the rich people. So commies lefties are the same be it of Pak origin or from USA.

May God give Commies a bit of Aqal and they could wake and smell the coffee.

Good for him

What about Zardari and Sharifs?

RW why are you trying to hijack the thread.

Don't you know that Forbes lists the industrialist mainly? and the evaluation for the top contenders is based on their stock market holdings?

Why do we have to inject anti-Pakistan negativity in every damn thread?

^ Stay calm. I thought Sharifs're industrialists too!

Good for Mansha but I believe Deewan Salman and Sadruddin Hashwani are almost there and should make the Forbes list soon

I agree, but dude what mentality are you talking about? I'm kinda lost to what you're referring to here?

I'm happy for him and all that comes with his success, but maintaining the middle class comment was referred to distribution of wealth- success of a country is not 5 billionaires residing there but 500 common ( and may be smaller) businesses going well, because in the longer run that creates more jobs and growth.

Comparing Mansha with above people is like comparing donkeys with horses. These people are inventors who have changed the direction of the world. They did not become billionaires by riding on the shoulders of the most corrupt people like NS or dictator Musharaf. Mind you. Really I am more impressed with Abdul Sattar Idhi, Asma Jahangir than this kind of thugs who thrived on the blood of Pakistani people.

Quite true