Who is Arif Naqvi?

Zahoor Ahmed Solangi
Arif Naqvi, the founder of Abraaj Group, is currently in the news in an article published in the Financial Times. According to the article, Arif Naqvi raised funds for PTI founder Imran Khan through a private cricket event in Oxfordshire. Funds were also obtained from a personality of the Gulf country. The article also focuses on former Prime Minister Imran Khan, who has for the first time admitted to receiving donations from Arif Naqvi’s offshore company Wooton Cricket Limited. Although Imran Khan has defended Arif Naqvi, the news of his donations to PTI is in circulation and will continue to do so until the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) investigates the possibility of PTI’s foreign funding case. Make a decision. Due to the current political drama, the world is unaware of many aspects of Arif Naqvi’s global rise and fall. Naqvi was born and studied in Karachi, after which he founded the $14 billion Abraaj Group. He was arrested in London by Scotland Yard at the request of the US government in April 2019 even before the Financial Times article. I have been the center of negative news even at the time of my arrest. After becoming a billionaire and the face of Pakistani business globally, Arif Naqvi is now financially dependent on friends, but most people don’t know about it, in a situation where he is on behalf of the US. They are fighting the case in the British courts against the deportation case, while at the same time they have been criticized in the international media. He has been under house arrest in his London home for the past four years after a group of his friends paid £15m for his bail.
At the same time, he is also fighting a legal battle against the process of deportation in London, while his mental and physical health has also been affected in this situation. Even though the process of his deportation is going on, he cannot answer the accusations made by the US, but he has been denying the accusations against him. If Arif Naqvi is found guilty in the ongoing trial in the US, he may face up to 300 years in prison. It is also worth mentioning here that in 97% of the cases filed against him in the US federal courts, the charges against him were not prosecuted because he had plea bargained in them and in the current case he could be sentenced to life imprisonment. . Arif Naqvi established Abraaj Equity Firm in the year 2002. Arif Naqvi’s company had become the largest equity firm in the world within fifteen years of its establishment and the world’s biggest investors invested in his company. It had assets under management of US$14 billion and employed around 400 employees in 25 offices from Bogotá to Istanbul, Nairobi and Jakarta, while the company was headquartered in Dubai. Arif Naqvi became the first Pakistani to venture into the world of private equity finance in the West and for many years was followed by examples in Western companies.
It is said that Arif Naqvi was the first person to call these parts of the business world (equity finance) developing economies instead of emerging economies. It has been reported that when the American journal Wall Street Journal began its reporting on the Abraaj Group in February 2018, it approached the reasons behind the failure of the sale of K Electric to Shanghai Electric for $1.77 billion. K-Electric was the main asset of a consortium of Middle Eastern investors led by the Abraaj Group, which invested $1 billion between 2005 and 2012. At the time of takeover, the company did not make profit for many years and faced many problems including corruption. However, after that the company set an example of success of public private partnership and studies were also conducted on it in reputed educational institutions. In fact, K Electric became the first successful company in the world and the only company in Pakistan to achieve an A Plus grade in the Company Sustainability Report. The downfall of the Abraaj Group began when the company’s leading investors suddenly withdrew their capital from the firm while regulatory issues, volatile political situation also played a role as former prime ministers Nawaz Sharif, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and Imran Khan. had also contributed to fill the gap in the balance sheet of Abraaj Group. Abraaj Group’s name has been in the news since 2018 after a dramatic decline in the company’s shares, with Arif Naqvi being blamed, with his lawyers likening the case to a media trial. He raised the point that even though 15,000 positive articles about the company were published in the global media between 2002 and 2017, the narrative about the company remained negative. Arif Naqvi was born in Karachi in 1960 in a middle-class family. He never changed his Pakistani identity for western citizenship. His patriotism can be gauged from a photograph at his residence in London of him polishing boots on Tariq Road in 1970 at the age of ten, and a banner reading ‘Defence of Pakistan Fund’. It is written, in this picture they are wearing school uniform. He completed his graduation from London School of Economics. After spending time in the UK and Saudi Arabia, he raised $50,000 to set up an international investment business called Coppola in Dubai, which he and his investors established in the Middle East by 2001. And made millions of dollars in profit. After Coppola, Arif Naqvi founded an equity firm called Abraaj, which was the first of its kind in emerging global markets and also gained a reputation. Despite making a name for himself on the global stage, Naqvi never shied away from helping Pakistan and maintaining its image abroad. In 2005, the then President Musharraf awarded him the Star of Distinction for his struggle to help the earthquake victims. He helped Pakistan in every difficult time including providing machinery from abroad for rescue operations during floods and emergencies. He was among the major donors of many charitable organizations including Shaukat Khanum Hospital, Citizen Foundation, Marie Stopes, LRBT and iCare, while he also provided funds for the establishment of campuses of many renowned educational institutions. On two occasions when Pakistani Navy personnel were kidnapped by Somali pirates, it was Arif Naqvi who used his money and international diplomatic connections to secure their release. Malala Yousafzai and two other girls who were injured in the TTP attack were transported to Britain and Arif Naqvi also paid for their education till graduation. The establishment of Aman Foundation is also owed to Arif Naqvi, who spent more than 35 billion rupees from 2008 to 2018, which is working as a non-profit organization in Karachi.
In 2022, after the bad luck of Arif Naqvi, the foundation had to be closed, but now the Sindh government has taken over its management. After the Israeli invasion of Gaza in 2009, he established the Mutsefati Foundation, which took care of 1,900 orphans. He also spent millions of dollars to establish Maqsood Naqvi Community Mosque in Dubai. Similarly, he spent millions of dollars for the establishment of Hero Masjid and Masood Community Center in Britain. He has also been honored with several international awards for his services, including the Oslo Business for Peace Award.