Legends-Seth Ahmad Dawood

Seth Ahmad Dawood was one of the top businessmen and industrialists of Pakistan. He had played such an important role as a Memon that his services can not be excluded from Memon history.

He was the Pakistani Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Dawood Group, the CEO of Dawood Cotton Mills Ltd, the CEO of the Central InsuranceCompany, and the owner of Dawood Hercules Chemicals Limited. He was one of the wealthiest people in Pakistan, and is considered to have been a great philanthropist and  respected entrepreneur .

Born in 1905, he used to work like an active young man, attending his office from 9.00 a.m. to 6.00 p.m regularly untill the last few years of his age when he had felt ill . He was the founder of Dawood Foundation through which he had established Dawood Engineering College in Karachi. In the early days some of the subjects taught in this College were not being taught in any other university/college anywhere in Pakistan. Even after nationalisation of this College he provides casual financial aid to the institution. The Foundation runs schools and other charitable institutions.

He and his son Hussain are founder trustees of Al-Shifa Eye Hospital to which his Foundation has contributed more than Rs. 15 million. He is the main founder of United Memon Jamaat and had always been keen to bring all the Memons on one platform. Unfortunately, during , the Bhutto regime, he was kept under house arrest for several months for just being an outspoken industrialist. He left Pakistan for a couple of years during which period he did exploratory work in USA in the field of oil exploration. He is a very daring industrialist with a foresight. In East Pakistan, due to labour unrest nobody was prepared to buy the PIDC Project Karnaphuli Paper and Chemical Mill, but Ahmed Dawood dared and continued to run it profitably till the emergence of Bangladesh. His main mission that every able bodied man in Pakistan should be provided with a bicycle to make him mobile has not yet been fulfiled.

The Dawood family started from humble origins when Ahmed Dawood began trading in pre-partition India and was eventually joined by his brothers.Just before Independence, Mr Ahmad Dawood had established a trading house dealing in commodities, textiles, jute and yarn, with branches in manycities and towns in pre-partition India. With Adamjees and Valikas, Dawoods played thepioneering role in late forties and early fifties to create a business culture in what wasthen West Pakistan .At partition the family opted to move to Pakistan, where the new nation created ample openings and opportunities for business and industry.It is said that he was commanded by Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah to migrate to Pakistan and set up an industry.

The family  made the transition from business to industry, first establishing Dawood Cotton Mills Limited in 1952. The industry expanded rapidly.

With the realisation that the only way to maintain continuous growth and enhance reputation was to expand internationally, the first international office was established in Manchester, England, operating under the title 'Dawood (England) Limited'. Simultaneously, senior members of the family, in a bid to ensure that the education of all successive generations be given the utmost importance, sent their children to England to pursue their studies.

As such, nearly the entire second generation has graduated with university degrees from England, from where they proceeded to the United States to study business at graduate level. The family can boast of having graduates of the best universities like Oxford, Manchester, London School of Economics, Strathclyde, McGill, University of Western Ontario, Harvard, Northwestern and Columbia. The family has more MBA:s than any other family in Pakistan. The Dawoods decided to expand further. In 1959. the family purchased Burewala Textile Mills, a cotton textile mill with its own ginning factory, and in 1969 established Dilon, which manufactured nylon and synthetic yam. Their last textile venture was Lawrencepur Woollen Mills.

The strategy of diversification was marked by the setting up of Dawood Hercules Chemicals (Urea fertiliser), followed by Transpak (baby food, toothpaste, toothbrushes and other consumer goods), Dawood Yamaha (Motorcycles), Dawlance (refrigerators and microwaves), Descon Engineering (construction), and Meiji Biscuits.

A move into the financial sector was the next step. It was put into effect with the establishment of Central Insurance Company (in-house insurance), BRR Capital Modaraba (leasing under the Islamic mode of financing), BRR Second Modaraba (working capital finance), and Equity International Modarba (venture capital funding as a joint venture with IFC and Robert Flemings). [All three Modarabas have since been merged into one, namely BRR International Modarabal. Other concerns include Orient Insurance Company, and the latest, Dawood Leasing Company Limited, a joint venture among the four brothers and other renowned financial institutions of Pakistan. Prior to the establishment of Bangladesh, the Dawood family also owned and managed Karnaphuli Paper Mills Limited and Karnaphuli Rayon and Chemicals Limited, which utilized bamboo as raw material for all their products. Karnaphuli Jute Mills Ltd was established in East Pakistan.

With the nationalisation fervour in the early seventies when Mr. Zutfiqar Ali Bhutto took over the reins of Pakistan, Dawood Petroleum Limited and Central Life were taken over by the State.

Finally, when this industrial empire was divided among the brothers, Seth Ahmad Dawood, Mr. Suleman Dawood, Mr. Siddiq Dawood and late Mr. Ali Mohammad Dawood, the industrial ventures, mentioned earlier, were amicably distributed and are being owned and managed by each one of the brothers or descendants.

 Dawoods played a leading role in the public welfare. Dawood Foundation was set up in1961 with a capital of Rs25 million. Dawood Engineering College was set up in sixtieswhich was later nationalized. It is still a leading institution of technical education. Mr Dawood Ahmad passed away on January 2, 2002 at the age of 97.