KARACHI – Habibullah Khan has recently declared liquid assets of $1.25billion outside of Pakistan in the single largest Amnesty declaration inthe South Asian country.
He is the Founder and Chairman of Mega Conglomerate – Mega & Forbes Groupof Companies (Mega Group – MFG), a diversified conglomerate with businessholdings including the country’s largest container terminal, the largestshipping and logistics businesses in the country, third largest dairyproducer, top tier cement manufacturing company, vertically integratedshipping company and most progressive real-estate developer responsible forthe only L.E.E.D. certified commercial building in Pakistan.
Khan’s declaration comes on the heels of a tax amnesty scheme announcedthrough an Ordinance on April 10, 2018. Federal Board of Revenue (FBR)Chairman Tariq Mahmood Pasha suggests businessmen who have kept theirassets abroad or invested in real estate should legalise them through theamnesty scheme.
The last date of availing the scheme is June 30, 2018.
This scheme has blessings from all stakeholders of the state, as thecountry desperately needs foreign exchange. Official foreign currencyreserves held by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) hover around the$10-billion mark, and sufficient to finance barely two months of imports.
Just last Friday, the FBR spokesman hoped that Pakistan attracts up to $4billion through the amnesty scheme. But if the scheme is derailed, it couldfurther complicate the government’s external sector problems.
Khan, the Karachi-based businessman, was recently dubbed as “the HowardHughes of Pakistan” by Profit Todaylink>.
Through over three decades of active patronage and participation in socialand environmental welfare, he has also become strongly associated withvarious charitable causes; recently donating a building for visitingprofessors at the Institute of Business Administration in Karachi.
“I’m the largest private equity player in this market,” he told thepublication in April, adding that three of his companies are among top 30taxpayers.
His father, Asadullah Khan was Pakistan’s first gas engineer who helpedcreate what today is Sui Gas.
Khan studied at Karachi Grammar School but moved to boarding school inEngland when his father left the country in 1972. After completing school,he went to Imperial College in London and was part of the first batch ofcomputer engineers that graduated in 1979.
His next stop was the University of California in San Diego where he workedon the Columbia satellite as a computer engineer. Then he went to Berkeleyto study management science and industrial engineering before returning toPakistan.
Khan started off in software and then moved into first textile and thenshipping in 1985. In 2000, his company had bought Qasim InternationalContainer Terminal (QICT).
He’s actively working to acquire a financial institution besides being ahuge player in the energy sector, having recently acquired a significantstake in Hub Power (Hubcolink>) from DawoodHercules and become its chairman.