What’s going with
Naya Nazimbad? The financial performance for the year declined as compared to the corresponding period on account of no new developments being launched during the period By Meiryum Ali
B
uying a house is no small matter, for any individual. One thinks about price, location, fit, distance from work, needs of the family - the list goes on. But one thing that needs to be paramount in all this is that the house - the physical building itself - has some value, some longevity. That it is not going to collapse or flood or a myriad other worst case scenarios. Unfortunately, in the country’s largest city, these are legitimate questions to worry about. And nothing kills consumer confidence like a few freak accidents here or there. Such is the case of Naya Nazimabad, which was meant
REAL ESTATE
to be a stellar new housing project, became entangled in the horrifics monsoon rains that flooded the city in 2020. And it seems that that has had an impact on sales and so on. In the most recent annual report released to the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX), Javedan Corporation, the company that owns Naya Nazomabad, recorded its lowest consolidated revenue figure since 2013 - when the company formerly kickstarted - and its second lowest consolidated net income. What happened? To understand, it helps to have context. Naya Nazimabad was meant to echo the original Nazimabad, a middle class suburban neighbourhood in Karachi established in 1952. As they housed mostly refugees and immigrants from India, these neighbour-
hoods came to embody the promise of ‘Pakistan’ – prosperity for the middle class. To this day, they command some of the highest per-squarefoot prices in Pakistan real estate. Now, Arif Habib Group, the conglomerate started in 1970, owns majority shares in Javedan Corporation, which was incorporated in 1961 and started off as a cement factory. Javedan owns around 1,300 acres of land at Manghopir, near SITE in Karachi. The area used to house Javedan’s cement plant, dilapidated by years of neglect, which in the last decade was converted in 2012 to a housing project, or Naya Nazimabad. As a project, Naya Nazimabad was conceived to “accommodate the housing demand of the middle income group and to provide a quality lifestyle for the progressive middle
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