Ahmed Dawood

Ahmed DaWood (15 March 1905 – 2 January 2002) was a Pakistani industrialist and a philanthropist.

By 1933 he was with his firm the biggest supplier of imported yarn to the textile mills in British India.

He also set up a cotton ginning factory in his hometown of Bantva, an oil mill in Madras, and a Vanaspati (hydrogenated vegetable oil) factory in Calcutta.

With a special license granted by the British colonial government, DaWood set up an army vehicle disposable depot in Chattogram.

Such depots were established after the end of the first World War and required a license.

DaWood further acquired an automobile service and repair company which carried out operations on a large scale.

Altogether, DaWood had some 26 shops and offices across British India.

He was about to finalise a deal with one of the leading traders and industrialists of the time, Nagindas Fulchand Chinai, to establish a viscose manufacturing joint venture when India got partitioned.

DaWood left India and moved with his siblings and their entire families to Pakistan soon after its founding with personal belongings they could carry.

DaWood and his three brothers — Suleman DaWood, Siddiq DaWood, and Sattar DaWood — started new business activities as DaWood Cooperation Ltd. with an office in Karachi's old business area New Chali and soon after opened a shop on Saleh Muhammad Street (adjacent to Bandar Road) for trading textile and yarn.

Therefore, the DaWood Cooperation was established in Pakistan and in Manchester.

In the following decades, particular in the 1950s and 1960s, DaWood founded several businesses and chaired companies in the cotton, textiles, paper, consumer goods, oil, logistics, insurance, jute, chemicals, motorbikes, home appliances, electronics, and fertilisers industries in East and West Pakistan.

He rose to prominence at the national level and became a major figure in the industrialisation of Karachi.

DaWood served as vice-chairman of Pakistan Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation (PICIC), one of the first development finance institutions in the country.

In 1968, DaWood partnered with the American company Hercules Inc. A private loan from the World Bank's International Finance Corporation (IFC) supported the realisation of the fertiliser factory in Sheikhpura.

In 1969, the expansion of multiple projects peaked: DaWood Petroleum Ltd started construction of its Oil Terminal at Keamari.

The DaWood Jute Mills were set up in East Pakistan, and the construction of the DaWood Hercules Chemical Fertilizer factory started.

The IFC invested into the expansion of the Karnaphuli Paper Mills in East Pakistan.

The project to assemble motorbikes in Pakistan known as DaWood Yamaha Ltd. started in the same year.

At the peak of his economic ventures in 1970, the different entities DaWood chaired employed 35,000 people.

It was also the year his mother died.

As a result of the independence of Bangladesh in 1971, assets and properties in East Pakistan of residents of West Pakistan were confiscated and nationalised.

DaWood founded several companies and The DaWood Foundation (TDF), which established the DaWood College of Engineering and Technology (renamed DaWood University of Engineering & Technology after being granted the status of a university in 2013).

DaWood was born in Bantva, a small town in Kathiawar, British India, as the eldest son and second child of the seven children to DaWood Yaqoob and Hajiani Hanifa Bai, a Memon trader family.

He had three years of formal education, like many others in his time and environs.

He followed the family tradition and went into the family business.

When he was 12, he was sent to stay with his maternal grandfather, Abdul Ghani Haji Noor Muhammad, in south India.

Over two years, he learned basic trade of cotton yarn, wheat, and grains in Shimoga (then in Mysore state, now in Karnataka).

He was then sent for another two years to the Madras Presidency area and assigned more responsibilities.

The death of his father, Yaqoob, was a turning point in his life.

Ahmed moved to Bombay and started his own business at the age of hardly 15.

Under the supervision of his grandfather, he opened a shop in Hanuman Building in the Tamba Kanta market area of Bombay.

When he was 18 or 19 years old, DaWood was married to Aysha, a girl of his own community and similar family background, in a match arranged by their families in the usual Indian way.

The couple had two sons – Aziz DaWood and Yousuf DaWood — and one daughter, Khadijah (Khatoo Bai).

After around 10 years, his wife Aysha Bai died because of tuberculosis.

Some years later, Ahmed DaWood married Mariam Bai, another lady from his own community and similar family background, again in a match arranged by their families.

The couple had two children, son Hussain DaWood and daughter Amina Bai.

DaWood's initial ventures in the spice trade ended in bankruptcy.

He then opened a small shop in Tamba Kanta to deal in cotton and silk yarn.

His strategy involved purchasing wholesale and selling retail.