Meet Mr Pakistan
Mian Mansha: patriarch and perfectionist
Mian Mansha: building a business empire amid social and political turmoil
MCB partners with Maybank
Nishat’s plans to list in London
Nishat: investing in Pakistan’s infrastructure
Leadership at Nishat group
Holding company set for listing
Mansha is also looking at the broader picture in his attempt to create the first Pakistani global corporate. Financial and tax legislation passed this year allows for the creation of holding companies that can be listed both at home and abroad. Mansha says he is aggressively restructuring his firm to create a new entity, tentatively titled Nishat Holdings.
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“We are interested in pursuing acquisitions alongside [Maybank] and we would also like to be more present in the Gulf – in the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait – as well as French-speaking Africa and Egypt. In the longer term, we are looking at China too. Capital is not a hurdle for us – we’re actually overcapitalized at the moment so we can either buy something or return cash to shareholders.”
Atif Bajwa |
Into that body will go many of the group’s prime assets – in banking, insurance, cement, textiles and power generation. The holding company will then be listed, says Mansha, in London, in 2009 or 2010 “depending on the strength of the markets”. The Nishat chairman hopes to sell up to 25% of the structure to foreign investors, generating about $2 billion. A further 24% will be listed over the two years following the flotation, says Mansha, raising a further $2 billion and taking the publicly listed portion of the group to 49%. The Mansha family owns 40% of Nishat Group, with the remainder held by an assortment of leading Chinioti families, as well as institutional and retail shareholders. Why do this now? For one thing, Nishat Group believes it has the wherewithal to pull off a big overseas stock sale. It’s also a matter of national pride for Mansha, who wants to make Nishat a byword for Pakistani corporate acumen, much as Ratan Tata, owner of Tata Steel and Tata Motors, has done for India. And there’s the element of mortality. For all of his spry energy, Mansha is an old man in a hurry.
“I will retire in the next 10 years,” he says. “We’re creating a holding company – we’re doing the legal work right now – that we will control everything through. It will package everything into a single, bigger firm so that we as a corporation can equally become bigger and better. I want my sons and my professional managers to benefit from it all.”
Mansha knows that listing a large chunk of his firm abroad won’t be a walk in the park – London’s financial regulator will go over the first big Pakistani company to sell shares in the UK with a fine-tooth comb. But, like China’s leading corporates selling stock in New York and Hong Kong, he hopes that a foreign listing will force Nishat executives to up their game. “Being listed overseas gives us more capital but it also brings certain responsibilities,” he says. “We will need to become more open and transparent, and that will travel down the company. We don’t have to do this. But we can’t run a large business any more if we are not transparent. And greater transparency brings cheaper credit and better ratings. [India’s] Reliance Industries is a good model for this. It has great transparency, and that has truly brought out the value of the management that they have.”
