Ittefaq Group
| Steel and Metallurgy,sugar manufacture, paper and board, textiles. | |
| Industry | Material science and Metallurgical Engineering |
| Genre | Commercial Public |
| Founded | 1965 |
| Founder | Muhammad Sharif |
| Headquarters | Lahore, Pakistan |
|
Key people
|
Hussain Nawaz Sharif Current Managing Director. Khawaja Haroon Pasha,Current Chief Executive Officer |
| Products | Hot rolled Products Billets Cold-rolled Products Galvanised Products Electronic materials |
| Services | Production of Iron and Steel |
1. Starting in 1936 as a small lathe shop in Lahore and emerging as the largest steel undertaking in Pakistan by 1971 known as Ittefaq Foundries, this Company was the flagship carrier of what came to be later known as the 'Ittefaq Group '.
2. Ittefaq Foundries also had sizeable operations in East Pakistan which fell victim to the fall of Dacca on 16 December 1971. Only two weeks later Ittefaq Foundries in Lahore was also nationalised with no compensation paid to owners.
3. 1972: The family set up a steel mills in UAE which it subsequently sold.
4. 1972-1977: Undeterred by a ruthless nationalization campaign ,the family set up 5 industrial organizations in Pakistan within a short span of 18 months which includes Ittefaq Brothers,Ilyas Enterprises, Nawaz Shahbaz Enterprises, Javed Parvez Enterprises and Khalid Siraj Industries.
5. 1979: Ittefaq Foundries is denationalized and handed back to the family in ruins .Millions are spent again on the Foundries by the Ittefaq family to revamp and diversify the Organization.
6. 1980: Ittefaq Textile Mills set up.
7. 1982: Brothers Steel Mills , another steel unit comes into operation.
8. 1983: Ittefaq Sugar Mills commences production with most of its machinery manufactured by Ittefaq Foundries.
9. 1984-1989: 2 additional units of Ittefaq Textile Mills, Brothers Textile Mills, Khalid Siraj Textile Mills Ramzan Buksh Textiles Mills and Brothers Sugar Mills come into operation. Brothers Sugar Mills came into operation despite a loan embargo imposed by the PPP government courtesy the Government controlled Nationalised Commercial Banks.
10. 1989: Terror Struck. MV Jonathan carrying 30000 tons of Scrap for Ittefaq Foundries is held at the outer anchorage at Karachi for one whole year on Orders of the Federal Government in contemptuous violation of Orders of the Superior Judiciary. Operations at Ittefaq Foundries come to a reeling halt in 1990. This single action caused a loss of Rs 500 million to the Foundries. Employment of thousands of workers was placed on the altar in a venomous vendetta. Thousands others indirectly associated were faced with loss of livelihood.
11. The undivided Ittefaq Group continued till October 1990 and by then had become the largest industrial Group in Pakistan employing thousands and contributing billions to the national exchequer in terms of taxes, duties and other levies.
12. 1990: Ittefaq group led by late Mian Muhammad Sharif was voluntarily divided amongst the seven families as the third generation started to come of age. The steel companies were retained in a pool to be owned by all seven families while the rest of the group, consisting of sugar, textiles and other mills, was passed on to the families of the other six brothers with Mian Muhammad Sharif retaining only Ramzan Sugar Mills and a small textile weaving unit Khalid Siraj Industries Private Limited. Ramzan Sugar Mills later passed on to the family of Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif while the other two brothers Muhammad Nawaz Sharif and Muhammad Abbas Sharif retained next to almost zilch of the 'Ittefaq Group'.
13. 1990-1993: With the Ittefaq Group divided, the Sharif Family set up Hudabiya Paper Mills, Hamza Board Mills, Chauudhry Sugar Mills, Hudabiya Engineering and a trust comprising a hospital, specialized educational institutions and a school.
14. 1994-1998: Terror struck again! With the PPP Government in power again at the Center in 1994,all financial facilities being availed by Ittefaq Foundries and its associated undertakings were arbitrarily withdrawn causing a procrastinated shutdown once again of all steel companies of the group including Ittefaq Foundries, Ittefaq Brothers and Brothers Steel. These companies were later disposed off to pay the entire loan liability of Rs 5.76 billion approximately with not a single penny of interest waiver ever received or ever sought.
15. With the steel companies sold off and with no shareholding in the former Ittefaq Group excepting Ramzan Sugar Mills which fell to the lot of the family of Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif ,the family of Muhammad Nawaz Sharif was left with no commercial or industrial asset except Chaudhry Sugar Mills owned equally with the family of Mian Abbas Sharif. Hudabiya Paper, Hamza Board and Hudabiya Engineering had since long closed down on account of procrastinated political victimization by successively opposed political governments.
16. 1999-2016: General Pervez Musharraf imposed martial law on 12 October 1999 over throwing the government of Muhammad Nawaz Sharif. The Sharif family was incarcerated for 14 months and later exiled to Saudi Arabia for 7 years. The entire family was later acquitted. Hussain and Hassan, the two sons had since long come of age. While Hassan had been in the Uk since 1994 as a student and subsequently started his own business of refurbishing properties and selling them , Hussain an LSE law graduate who was called to the Bar had already matured as an astute businessman in exile. Expanding his small steel factory near Makkah at a rapid pace starting in 2001 , with sheer hard work , Hussain was able to transform this factory by 2006 into a steel manufacturing unit which would later in the same year be disposed of as part of a financial settlement between the three Sharif brothers. The disposal of this unit did not deter Hussain to lay the foundations in Saudi Arabia.
