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Mohammad Farooq

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At-Tahur’s road to IPO begins, book-building set to close on 26th June

29 Friday Jun 2018

Posted by Mohammad Farooq in Business, Markets, Pakistan

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Tags

At-Tahur Limited, Initial Public Offering (IPO), KSE-100 Index, Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX), Pasteurized Milk, Prema Milk

By: Mohammad Farooq

LAHORE: The registration for book-building of At-Tahur’s IPO on the Pakistan Stock Exchange commenced on June 20th and is set to end on 26th of this month.

At-Tahur is issuing 36.7 million shares with 75 percent for book building and remaining 25 percent for retail investors at a floor price of Rs20 per share.

According to At-Tahur’s IPO prospectus “The issue is being made through the book building process at a floor price of Rs20.00 per share (including a premium of Rs10.00 per share) with an upper limit of 40 percent above the floor price.

The bidders shall be allowed to place bids for hundred percent (100 percent) of the issue size and the strike price shall be the price at which the hundred percent (100 percent) of the issue is subscribed.”

Also, bidding period dates commence from 25th June and end on June 26th at 5:00 pm. And the date of public subscription begins on 2nd July at 9 am and concludes on the 3rd of July at 5 pm.

The unsubscribed retail portion would be given to book building bidders and the funds raised from the IPO will be utilized to raise the plant, milk capacity and herd size.

The total funding requirement of At-Tahur amounts to Rs945 million, from which 77.6 per cent i.e. over Rs730 million proceeds will come from the IPO and the remainder will comprise of debt financing.

Arif Habib is acting as the consultant to offer for At-Tahur’s IPO at the PSX.

The company’s chief executive officer (CEO) is Rasikh Elahi, a law graduate from University of Buckingham, United Kingdom and the son of ex-Punjab Chief Minister and former deputy PM Chaudhary Pervaiz Elahi and the brother of Moonis Elahi.

He has been the CEO since the company’s inception in 2007.

In a comment to Profit, Maha Jafer Butt, Director Research Capital Stake said “At-Tahur shall be the first dairy company operating in the niche segment of production and sale of pasteurized Milk to go public.

The product portfolio of other listed companies including Fauji Foods Limited and Engro Foods Limited is more focused on the UHT treated milk production and include other food items also.”

“With increased health awareness and doubts over the quality of milk loose milk, demand for At Tahur is expected to rise. A review of the company’s past financials demonstrates sales expanding with a CAGR 28% (as mentioned in the prospectus).

According to the prospectus, funds from the IPO shall be utilized in expanding into the untapped market of Karachi. Karachi being a large city with a literacy rate higher than many others may prove to bring in good demand. Other uses of the fund include increased herd size, expansion of the plant and farm capacity,” she said.

At-Tahur commenced operations more than a decade ago and is a key player in the pasteurized dairy segment of Pakistan. Its principal activity is to run a dairy farm for the production and processing of milk and dairy products.

Its major proficiency includes a retail network with a footprint of over 3,000 stores across the country which includes a vertically integrated distribution network, modern and automated dairy farm and a high-quality product range.

The company’s Prema milk brand holds the biggest market share in the pasteurized segment according to the Nielsen Retail Audit in March 2018.

In April, Dawn reported entities looking for a potential initial public offering (IPO) on the Pakistan Stock Exchange had declined in the last year or so.

At KSE-100 index’s zenith in late May last year, when it touched a record high of 52,876 points over 17 entities had applied for listing according to the daily quotation sheet of the exchange.

At that juncture, Dalda Foods, Inbox Technologies Limited and a variety of funds in Gold Fund; Energy Fund; Capital Protected Fund; Active Allocation Fund; Strategic Allocation Fund; Treasury Fund; Prosperity Planning and privately placed sukuk had sought to be listed on the PSX.

However, in 2018 as per the quotation sheet of the exchange, only 7 companies are seeking a listing on the stock exchange which includes, Inbox Technologies Limited, Unicol Limited, At-Tahur Limited, Liberty Power Tech Ltd, TPL Life Insurance Ltd, Hira Terry Mills Ltd and Dalda Foods.

This will be the third IPO of the year following Matco Foods and AGP Pharmaceutical’s listing on the bourse in January and February respectively.

Published in Profit by Pakistan Today, June 24th. 

A legendary architect: Zaheer ud Deen Khawaja

21 Monday May 2018

Posted by Mohammad Farooq in Architecture, Biography, General, History, Humanity, Pakistan, Struggle, Tributes

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Architecture, Heroes, History, Icons, Pakistan, Personalities, Tributes

“Travelling is the best way of getting acquainted/accustomed to other cultures, which teaches us a lot about their customs and values said Zaheer-Ud-Deen Khwaja to me, one of the most renowned architects produced by Pakistan almost 20 years ago.” These words, were like pearls of wisdom for me along with many other exchanges with him, that helped transform my thoughts into something more diverse than they may have turned out to be. He had played a pivotal role as an architect who was internationally recognized and won many accolades/awards within his own capacity for Pakistan, but the selflessness this man had displayed throughout his life is worth exploring.

For me, having personal access to him was trivial courtesy of him being my mother’s mamo and brother of Safia Manto, my grandmother. I called him Zaheer Nana, out of sheer love and respect for a man who was revered by the whole family for his wisdom, knowledge, balance and impeccable honesty which may be unbelievable to my readers currently. He has been forgotten with time, achievements of his groundbreaking in many aspects, languishing and largely written off.

I discerned a few decades ago, the role of architects in that era wasn’t as celebrated and given equivocal footing, as say someone who was a writer, an actor or a poet for example. But, what Zaheer-Ud-Deen-Khwaja achieved was unprecedented at a time when broadcast media and the internet did not exist.

Zaheer-Ud-Deen Khwaja, was born in Kenya in the early 1920’s where his father Qamar-Ud-Deen was employed as Public Prosecutor in Zanzibar a British protectorate in those days. His father had originally settled in Karatina, about a hundred miles from Nairobi so due to rudimentary schooling available, the area was majorly populated by traders from Gujrat, India who ran the primary school there. So, his initial instruction medium of education was hence in Gujrati. Qamar-Ud-Deen, his father who was serving in Zanzibar as a Public Prosecutor, headed by an Arab Sultan died an untimely death when he was assassinated for being mistaken as a British Police officer due to his fair complexion in 1936.

The rather unforeseen seen death of his father, must have been a major catastrophic event in their lives, but their mother who was uneducated but a towering personality in her own right took over the family reins. Thanks to the representation of his uncle, Shams-Ud-Deen, a member of the Legislative council and an influential person in his own right, ensured that the widow of Qamar-Ud-Deen was provided financial help by the British Colonial Government, a pension for the entirety of her life, bursaries for the four sons till the age of eighteen and completion of their education.

Also, allowances were allotted for his three sisters till they got married. Considering these events, Miss Qamar-Ud-Deen took the momentous decision of migrating to Bombay (now Mumbai), India. After arriving in Bombay, aged 14 he found himself to be the head of the family, but his mother as mentioned earlier was a woman of virtue and considerable intellect who had an immense influence on her children, which left an everlasting impact on all of them during their respective lifetimes.

Restarting his education, he completed his High School from St. Mary’s High School, Bombay and decided to pursue Architecture on the advice of his cousin Zafar-Ud-Deen, although as per his memoirs he barely scraped through Art as a subject in his Senior Cambridge examinations!  He took admission in the renowned Sir J.J School of Art where he pursued his architecture. It was a time he remembered rather fondly, with his initial struggles in the first two years at university and the development of a close bond with his Professor Claude Batley who was the Head of the Department of Architecture too. During the third and fourth years, all the students were encouraged to visit the northern and southern parts of India, to get abreast of the finest traditional architecture and diversity it had to offer. By the fifth year, doing an apprenticeship was mandatory in a firm of architects and he was attending of 2 hourly classes in the morning.

He then appeared for an external exam of the Royal British Institute of British Architects, as the diploma offered by the college he attended was not accepted internationally back then. After successfully passing the external exam, he applied for a post-graduate scholarship on offer by the Government of India, which he received for a degree in Civic Design at the University of Liverpool, UK. While aboard the ship to the UK in October 1946, he was also accompanied by a future Nobel Laureate and renowned Physicist Professor Abdus Salam, Aslam Raza who later became the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Pakistan and Ikramullah Niazi, a P.W.D engineer and the father of iconic cricketer turned politician Imran Khan.

Besides completing his post-graduation at the University of Liverpool, he also got the opportunity to travel around the whole of UK and visited a host of other countries in Europe for which the Government of India generously provided financial assistance. By 1948, after being elected as a certified member of the Royal Town Planning Institute, he made his way back to Pakistan in October of the same year.

Upon his return to Pakistan, the scholarship he had been awarded by the Government of India contained a clause or a surety bond which bound him to serve them in an individual capacity to the field he was linked with. Apparently, at that point of time he was ironically one of the only qualified architect and town planners available within Pakistan! While job hunting for a few months, he landed up a job in East Pakistan (Now Bangladesh) as Assistant Government architect in Chittagong at a salary of Rs 800. The time spent there was remembered fondly, along with this comradeship and close bonding with his Bengali colleagues of that time who never forgot him for his sincerity and kindness he had meted them with. After his marriage to his beloved wife Tahira, in December 1950 and with whom he shared a beloved bond of almost 55 years till her death in July 2005.

After a year’s stint in Chittagong and Dhaka, he was offered an important position of Architect and Town planner of Thal Development Authority (TDA) in West Pakistan to oversee a multi-million regional planning covering an area of six million acres of desert which he graciously accepted. As he narrated it in his memoirs, the five years spent involved in the development of this region was one of the golden periods which included designing of the Quaidabad hospital by him as well.

The Thal Development project is listed by the Britannica Encyclopedia is listed as one of the most important development projects in the world. After his association with TDA for five years, he embarked upon taking charge of Pakistan P.WD  in the then capital city, as Chief Town Planner and Architect on the direct orders of the then Prime Minister Huseyn Suhrawardy who wished to enlist his services in end of 1957.

Also in 1957, a Quaid-e-Azam’s Mausoleum Architectural Competition to build a budding memorial to the founding father of the nation was held for which he was assigned to select a jury of assessors for this momentous project. In a rather unfortunate turn of events, the design awarded as the winning one was not acceptable to Mohtarma Fatima Jinnah and she hired an architect of her own choice from India who designed the current mausoleum built in honour of Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah. During 1958, as the architect-in-chief of the P.W.D and later with the Karachi Development Authority (KDA), he was actively involved in the planning and execution of the Korangi township, and various other projects during the time spent there. In his period spent there, he dealt with the growing developmental issues of Karachi which was experiencing rapid urbanization due to being the economic hub of Pakistan and remains to this day.

Also, in an interesting incident narrated in his book with the founder of Dawood Hercules, Ahmed Dawood is shared in this snapshot:

capture

His achievements remain unprecedented, but he was a family man, a principled father, a dutiful husband to his beloved wife Tahira and a doting grandfather to his granddaughters Mahvash, Sarah, Anam and Alizeh.

Net Neutrality in Pakistan

27 Thursday Mar 2014

Posted by Mohammad Farooq in Internet, Net Neutrality, Pakistan, Technology, Websites

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Internet Services, Mobile Data, Net Neutrality, Netizens, Pakistan, PTCL, VOIP

The guiding principle to the preservation of a free and open internet is “Net Neutrality”. It means that ISP’s may not discriminate between different kinds of content and applications online. It guarantees a level playing field for all websites and internet technologies. The question arises as to how we should apply the concept of “Net Neutrality” in the context of Pakistan. Net Neutrality has primarily garnered a lot of attention in the United States, and has been the subject of intense scrutiny and various lawsuits over the last 4 years or so. My focus is to make it relevant in the context of Pakistan and how can it affect us in the longer scheme of things.

      In Pakistan, many would argue the concepts very mention would be nonsensical and idiotic. Our telecom and internet sector is predominantly dominated by PTCL; one of the largest providers of fixed line telephone, broadband and wireless internet services. Besides being in the business of providing the aforementioned services, PTCL is also involved in leasing bandwidth to all major ISP’s operating in Pakistan. Majority of the submarine cables landing in Pakistan, are owned by a consortium of telecom companies including PTCL which is a major stakeholder in it. Besides it, the only company providing bandwidth leasing services to ISP’s is Transworld Alliance ie TWA. This gives PTCL a whopping control over the whole telecom sector.  It stifles competition and gives them absolute price setting power and ability to manipulate the market to their whim. Since the advent of mobile providers like Telenor, Warid and China Mobile, the market opened up to healthy competition bringing down the call rates that were quite exorbitant before the deregulation of the telecom sector in 2004. Before this, Mobilink was the sole provider of GSM services in Pakistan for almost 10 years since 1994/95.  It virtually controlled the Pakistani market in the presence of providers like Paktel and Instaphone.

The critical aspect to understand is the unlimited control that PTCL is exhibiting in the realm of internet services in Pakistan. A key indicator is the growing use of VOIPs and preference of cellphone usage in Pakistan. Due to low calling rates, the use of fixed line telephony services has reduced drastically in comparison to the ease of access offered by cellphones. This has hurt PTCL revenues sharply in the last decade since it was sold to Etisalat in 2005. Due to exploding growth of smartphones and widespread Wi-Fi internet access availability in the urban areas, the use of VOIP services like Skype, Viber has grown tremendously. Due to the ease of convenience that it offers and the biggest thing is, it are free! As per net neutrality, PTCL should be offering a level playing field to all competitors and not prioritize their fixed line services which is in effect; detrimental to the consumer.  Due to exponential growth in VOIP services, PTCL has blocked the ability to make calls over Skype to landline numbers abroad which is a gross violation of the principles of net neutrality. Degradation in services like Skype and Viber which people use to contact their loved ones abroad causes significant hurdles for the consumers. It forces them to use fixed line or wireless telephony services to contact them instead. Alternatives do exist, but the majority using Skype or Viber like applications do not possess the knowledge or are tech savvy enough to determine which other services to use instead.

     Interestingly, another example of net neutrality could be a deal signed by PTCL with the Jang Group of Newspapers, who own the famous television channel Geo, and the English newspaper; The News. This would involve the Jang Group paying PTCL money to offer prioritized internet traffic to its news portals like Geo.tv and TheNews.com.pk during peak hour usage. For example in the evening when people come back home and log onto the web and access news websites. This could happen possibly that competing websites like ARY and Dunya news websites either would be very slow to access due to a deliberate slowdown in internet traffic by PTCL. This would force the consumers frustratingly to switch to websites like Geo which are readily, easily accessible due to the prioritized speeded up traffic being provided by the ISP. This ultimately would work to the benefit of PTCL, which would either hatch up a package offering speeded up internet access in form of a paid upgrade to the consumers, or offer tiered internet services depending on the level of usage of the customer. A customer or even a company in need of speedy internet access would hop onto this bandwagon and save themselves from the misery of slow internet access on websites that they want to access. This would mean more revenue and profits could be generated by PTCL and make it immune to competition. And hence it will not make significant investments in its infrastructure to provide better internet services to the customer. PTCL would know it well when they can rake in significant revenue by just hatching up prices and slowing down internet access deliberately. In a market totally dominated by them who would dare challenge them? Even the government due to the significant market share and fear of investor unrest would not take on the behemoth known as PTCL and would put its hand up.

    The mention about video streaming and IP TV access in respect of net neutrality was purposely ignored. Till now the level of streaming and data consumption in Pakistan is not comparable to the West; due to a lack of high speed internet access. With the advent of 3G and 4G services; whose licenses are being auctioned shortly; Net Neutrality will garner significant importance and the netizens of Pakistan will realize what lies ahead of us as the use of data services would grow exponentially in the coming few years.

image

*Net Neutrality definition has been taken from the website www.savetheinternet.com  citation 1st paragraph*

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Me

Mohammad Farooq

Mohammad Farooq

Busines Journalist and ex-Senior Sub-Editor at Profit by Pakistan Today. Bylines in Dawn, Livemint India, Huffington Post, Express Tribune, MIT Techreview Pakistan,IGN Pakistan, . Interested in Technology affairs, history buff and Part qualified accountant.

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A lot has been going on…

  • My Angelic Grandmother December 14, 2021
  • A man for all seasons: Shahid Jalal August 19, 2020
  • The Merchants of Death June 18, 2020
  • The renaissance of reading books again September 25, 2019
  • Privilege is abusive July 31, 2019

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