At Searle, revenue growth is now about volumes, not just prices
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AKD Securities revenue triples on the back of a roaring stock market
Pakistan’s largest investment bank has
benefited
from a rising tide in the market, with principal investing driving most gains
In a year when Pakistan’s equity market has finally rediscovered its animal spirits, no firm better captures the boom than AKD Securities Ltd. The country’s largest brokerage and non-bank advisory house has seen its top line explode as trading volumes surge, valuations rerate and the firm’s own investment book rides the rally.
For the twelve months to June 2025, AKD’s total income more than doubled to roughly Rs5.5 billion, up from about Rs2.7 billion a year earlier. In the first quarter of FY26, the momentum has accelerated further: total income for the three months to September has soared from just over Rs1.0 billion to about Rs3.2 billion, an eye-watering jump of 213% year on year.
Behind those headline numbers lies a classic bull-market mix of fee income from hyperactive clients and spectacular mark-tomarket gains from the firm’s own positions.
The first line of AKD’s income statement – “operating revenue/management fee” – is the backbone of any traditional investment bank: brokerage commissions, trading spreads and investment banking retainers. In AKD’s case, this stream has swelled from Rs1.3 billion in FY24 to just under Rs2.0 billion in FY25, a rise of 54%. In 1QFY26 alone, operating revenue has leapt from Rs333 million to Rs783 million, a 135% jump that speaks to frantic activity on the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) as both institutional and retail investors rush to re-risk their portfolios.
That expansion in fee income tracks the
broader revival on the PSX. The benchmark KSE-100 index was already one of the world’s best-performing markets in 2024 and on track to have a strong 2025. A combination of aggressive interest-rate cuts, a stabilising macroeconomic environment under an IMF programme, and returning foreign interest has pulled investors out of bank deposits and back into shares. For a firm that bills itself as Pakistan’s largest brokerage and a leading non-bank advisory house, that is a boon to revenue.
AKD’s management has invested heavily in capturing that flow. The firm runs what it describes as a state-of-the-art call centre and a robust online trading platform for retail and high-net-worth clients, complemented by a money-market desk that services banks, development finance institutions, asset managers and corporates. In a market where many investors still rely on phone-based dealing and relationship managers, the ability to handle both digital and traditional channels at scale has helped AKD consolidate share.
Yet the real fireworks in AKD’s FY25 and early FY26 numbers do not come from fees. They come from the firm’s own balance sheet.
The line item “gain/(loss) on remeasurement of investments” – which captures unrealised mark-to-market moves on the principal investment book – has swung from a small loss of Rs21 million in FY24 to a towering gain of roughly Rs1.9 billion in FY25. In the latest quarter, those gains have ballooned further, from Rs420 million in 1QFY25 to about Rs1.8 billion
in 1QFY26, a 337% increase.
This is precisely what one would expect from an investment bank that runs a large proprietary equities book in the middle of a massive bull run. As the KSE-100 has surged, so too has the value of AKD’s inventory of shares and other securities, with unrealised gains flowing straight through the income statement. Capital gains on the actual sale of investments have also risen, though more modestly, from Rs452 million in FY24 to Rs549 million in FY25, and from Rs35 million to Rs452 million in the latest quarter – a sign that the firm has begun to crystallise some of those paper profits.
Other income lines tell a more mixed story. Dividend income dipped in FY25 but rebounded sharply in 1QFY26 as investee companies restored payouts. Profit on bank deposits rose in the full year but fell in the quarter, reflecting the rotation of capital away from cash and into risk assets as well as falling interest rates. Administrative expenses and staff costs have climbed – unsurprising in a business that is both growing and incentivising performance – but not nearly enough to offset the revenue surge. Profit before tax has vaulted from Rs1.7 billion to just over Rs4.1 billion in FY25, and from Rs808 million to almost Rs2.9 billion in the latest quarter. Earnings per share have accordingly leapt from roughly Rs2.3 to Rs5.7 in FY25, and from Rs1.1 to Rs4.6 in 1QFY26.
Management has signalled a pragmatic approach to payouts, recommending that between 30 and 50% of earnings be distributed
while retaining sufficient profits to fund growth during what they see as a high-opportunity phase for equities. They also point out that, even after a rerating, the market’s price-earnings multiple remains below the peaks seen in 2017 and during previous IMF programmes, and argue that if the index merely reverts to its long-term average multiple of around thirteen times, it could climb towards the 250,000-point level on current earnings.
AKD’s swagger today rests on decades of capital-market history. The broader AKD Group traces its roots back to 1947, when founder Abdul Karim Dhedhi set up a trading enterprise that would, in the 1970s, evolve into a brokerage house and later a diversified financial and real-estate conglomerate. The group claims several “firsts” in Pakistan’s capital markets, including launching one of the country’s earliest online retail trading platforms in 2002, opening the door to thousands of new retail investors.
But the entity now listed on the Pakistan Stock Exchange under the ticker AKDSL is the product of a more recent consolidation. Until a few years ago, the listed brokerage in question was BIPL Securities, itself the successor to one of Pakistan’s most venerable market names: KASB Securities.
In 2015, BankIslami Pakistan, a Shariah-compliant commercial bank, acquired the troubled KASB Bank for a token amount after regulatory intervention. As part of that transaction, it inherited a roughly seventy seven% stake in KASB Securities, at the time one of the most respected firms on Karachi’s McLeod Road. The brokerage was later rebranded as BIPL Securities. Under its new banking parent, however, the firm struggled to maintain its franchise; BankIslami’s strategic priorities lay elsewhere, and the securities business never sat comfortably inside a purely Islamic lender.
By 2019 the bank had formally put BIPL Securities up for sale, arguing that a conventional brokerage business did not fit its mandate. AKD Securities stepped in, acquiring BankIslami’s entire stake of just over 77% and ultimately merging the two brokerages. In July 2022, the listed entity changed its name from BIPL Securities Ltd to AKD Securities Ltd, with the combined firm marketed as Pakistan’s largest full-service brokerage and non-bank advisory institution.
The legacy of KASB – a pioneer of modern equity research in Pakistan – thus lives on under the AKD banner. BIPL brought with it a history stretching back to the early 1960s, a strong client roster, and memberships of both the Pakistan Stock Exchange and the Pakistan Mercantile Exchange. AKD contributed its own deep bench of research analysts, institutional relationships and corporate-finance credentials, including past roles advising on privatisations, IPOs and major infrastructure deals.
Today, AKD Securities styles itself as a “full-spectrum” capital-markets house. Its product offering ranges from equities, fixed income, foreign exchange and commodities broking to money-market intermediation, mergers and acquisitions advice, equity and debt capital-markets work, and research. The PSX’s own snapshots show AKD commanding a significant share of trading value, while industry surveys regularly rank its research franchise among the most influential for both domestic and foreign institutions.
AKD’s blowout results have not occurred in a vacuum. They mirror the broader revival of Pakistan’s capital markets after a long, bruising stretch.
From 2017 through 2023, the PSX endured a largely lost half-decade. Political churn, stopgo macroeconomic policy, repeated currency devaluations and a bruising inflationary cycle kept both foreign and domestic investors on the sidelines. Equity issuance dried up, liquidity thinned and brokerage houses scrambled to survive on shrinking commissions.
That picture has changed dramatically over the last two years. With the country narrowly avoiding default in 2023 thanks to IMF support, and a follow-on facility agreed in 2024, macroeconomic risk has receded, at least for now. The State Bank has slashed its policy rate by a cumulative thousand basis points since mid-2024 as inflation has tumbled from around 40% at its peak to single-digit levels, freeing investors from the straitjacket of ultra-high yields on government paper.
The result has been a dramatic rerating of Pakistani equities. Bloomberg and local media have repeatedly ranked the PSX among the world’s top-performing markets: the KSE-100 rose about 30% in 2024 and has continued to power ahead, with some estimates putting its 2025 gain at more than 50%. Capital raising has picked up: between July 2024 and March 2025, the PSX mobilised nearly Rs9.8 billion through new equity and debt listings, a sharp break from the drought of preceding years.
None of this has been in a straight line. Geopolitical shocks have triggered episodes of sharp volatility; in May 2025, for instance, the market tumbled more than five% in a single day after Indian military strikes ratcheted up regional tensions. But for firms like AKD, volatility is often a feature, not a bug. Spikes in fear bring trading volumes, and market pullbacks present opportunities for well-capitalised proprietary desks to add to positions at lower prices.
It is in this context that AKD’s management has been unabashedly bullish. In late 2024, the firm forecast that the KSE-100 could deliver returns of more than 55% in calendar 2025 as easing rates and improved macro fundamentals pull valuations towards their long-term averages. So far, that call looks prescient – and highly
profitable for a firm whose fortunes are deeply entwined with those of the stock market.
If the past eighteen months have reminded Pakistan of the upside leverage embedded in investment banking and brokerage earnings, history also offers a cautionary tale: this is one of the most cyclical businesses in finance.
Global data show that investment-banking and brokerage revenues tend to expand rapidly during periods of strong capital-market performance, only to contract sharply when volatility spikes or risk appetite evaporates. Trading and related services make up the largest share of the global investment-banking revenue pool, meaning that swings in volumes and spreads can dramatically affect earnings. When markets are calm and issuance pipelines are full, banks enjoy bumper fees from equity and debt underwriting as well as generous bid-offer spreads. When crises hit, those revenue streams dry up almost overnight.
Pakistan has experienced those cycles in compressed form. The boom in the mid-2000s, the post-2013 rally and the short-lived surge after the 2016 MSCI Emerging Markets inclusion all produced windfalls for brokers, only to be followed by painful busts. In lean years, proprietary trading books can become a liability, forcing firms to mark down holdings, take losses on forced sales or even face margin calls.
AKD’s recent numbers underscore both sides of that dynamic. In a rising market, the firm’s principal book magnifies upside, as seen in the huge gains on remeasurement of investments over the last year. But that same leverage would work in reverse if the KSE-100 were to correct sharply. Unrealised gains could turn into unrealised losses; risk appetite among clients could dry up; and the high operating leverage inherent in a human-capital-intensive business could amplify the hit to profits.
Management insists it is alive to those risks. The firm positions itself not just as a broker but as a risk manager, emphasising research-driven investing, diversified sector exposure and robust risk controls. Its money-market and fixed-income desks also provide a measure of diversification, generating fee and trading income that is less directly tied to equities. And its advisory franchise – covering mergers and acquisitions, privatisations, IPOs and Sukuk issuance – offers episodic but potentially chunky revenue streams that are somewhat less sensitive to day-to-day market gyrations.
Even so, few inside the industry would dispute that the tide can go out as quickly as it comes in. For now, though, AKD is very much surfing the wave rather than worrying about the undertow. Its management talks openly about being “the largest” corporate brokerage house operating out of Pakistan, no longer one of the largest. The numbers from FY25 and early FY26 appear to justify that confidence.
Pakistan’s premier bank has gone all in agricultureon
Over the past few years, the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has encouraged banks to expand agri-financing. The banks have responded, surprisingly, with enthusiasm. What does it mean for the most important sector of Pakistan’s economy?
PBy Abdullah Niazi
akistan’s agricultural sector is under strain from every direction. In a recent written reply to parliament, Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb painted an alarming picture of the country’s agriculture sector. Crop failures, low yields, farmer migration to cities and compounding climate and economic crises have all laid waste to Pakistan’s most important economic sector. Add to this the devastating floods that hit the country in the monsoon season and you have a tale of crop loss, dead livestock, displacement, and major cash flow problems.
In fact, cash flow is enough of a problem that a significant portion of the letter addressed the falling credit disbursement to the farm sector by the government’s frontline agriculture support institution, Zarai Taraqiati Bank Limited (ZTBL). Total disbursements from ZTBL have fallen by 54% in the past two years from Rs 85.56 billion in 2023 to Rs 39.66 billion in 2025. For a bank created in 1961 to serve agricultural development, the contraction reflects deeper structural weakening, and the failure of the government to act as the financier for the agriculture sector.
While these recent woes seem to spell a doomsday scenario, behind the scenes, Pakistan’s commercial banks have been picking up the slack. Disbursements of agricultural credit by commercial banks increased by 16.2% from Rs 2.2 trillion in 2024 to Rs 2.58 trillion in 2025.
The increase is no coincidence. Over the past few years, the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has encouraged the country’s commercial banks to pick up the slack when it comes to providing financing to the agricultural sector. Historically, Pakistani banks have shied away from agriculture. With little understanding of crop cycles and the exact needs of farmers and even less effort to try and figure it out, lending to farmers has largely been collateral based and short term.
Clearly that is changing, and the shift is palpable. Only last month the Bank of Punjab told analysts that a third of their total loan book consists of lending to the agriculture and SME sectors. Even a decade ago this would have been unheard of. Among the top five banks, UBL increased their agricultural disbursements by 40% from Rs 164.7 billion to Rs Rs 231.6 billion. Similarly, even small banks that had previously been ignoring agriculture entirely have seen a slight shift. Sindh Bank had the single largest increase in disbursements at 440% compared to the previous year, although this was more a function of their disbursements in the previous year only being Rs 11.7 crores.
Among Islamic Banks, BankIslami stood out. It increased its disbursements by 88.6%, going from Rs 18.6 billion last year to Rs 35.1 billion this year. Overall, the Islamic Banking category actually saw the single largest percentage increase in agricultural credit disbursement amongst all banking segments
Fostering real progress in agriculture cannot rely exclusively on expanding credit. True agricultural advancement can only be achieved when mechanisation, technology, scientific training and the use of AI tools for weather predictability and resource management are at the heart of the national agenda. This requires moving beyond banking towards a model where financial support is closely interwoven with a push for innovation, capacity-building, and knowledge-sharing
Sultan Ali Allana, HBL’s Chairman
at nearly 30%. In 2024, Islamic Banks disbursed Rs 136.6 billion in agricultural credit. In this last financial year that number had risen to Rs 177.4 billion.
The data is clear. Pakistan’s struggling agriculture sector needs better financing, and further encouragement from the SBP seems to have worked. Banks are improving their agricultural portfolios, credit and disbursements from commercial banks are going up. The only major commercial bank that has been disappointing with its performance in agricultural disbursements was the government owned National Bank of Pakistan (NBP), which saw a year-on-year increase of only 1.5% and barely reached the halfway mark of their credit expansion plan.
But out of all the commercial banks in Pakistan, the one that stands out the most is HBL. Last year, instead of giving targets to different banks for agriculture lending, the SBP asked banks to set their own credit expansion plans. HBL gave itself the largest target, aiming to have agricultural loan disbursements up to Rs 350 billion. They outperformed their own expansion plan, achieving 108% of their target by bringing
their total disbursements to Rs 377.9 billion, more than any other bank in the country.
The change is seismic. Think of it this way: the only other bank to rival HBL on the agricultural front is the majority-owned Government of Punjab bank, Bank of Punjab (BOP). As we mentioned earlier, a third of BOP’s loan book is agricultural and SME financing. Not only this but these loans account for only about 8% of this exposure. While this is impressive, it is only achievable because a significant part, nearly 76.59%, of the agricultural lending is on the back of risk sharing with the Government of Punjab, leaving only a small proportion uncovered. As the largest agricultural producer in the country, it makes sense for the Government of Punjab’s bankers to be involved in agriculture and for the provincial government to support them.
But what was in it for the HBL Group? Why did Pakistan’s premier Bank and its subsidiaries decide to focus on a sector that has historically been ignored by the financial services industry? Where did the decision come from despite the significant risks the agriculture sector poses in the
fast-changing age of climate change? The shift began earlier than many might think. Profit spoke to the leadership of the HBL Group and its subsidiaries to trace the story of this shift.
Changing perspectives
In February 2024, on the occasion of the ceremony marking the launch of HBL Zarai Services Limited, Sultan Ali Allana, Chairman - HBL said, “We have been actively pursuing programs and introducing solutions for the growth and progress of the Agricultural Sector since the privatisation of the bank in 2004. Alhamdullilah HBL Group today is the single largest institutional provider of financial services for this segment of the economy, directly impacting over 350,000 farmers. With the formation and launch of HBL Zarai, Insha’Allah, we will be able to host advisory and input services along with offtake and warehousing right at the farmers doorstep through Deras – dedicated distribution and service centres etched among the heart of the farmlands thus ensuring food security and
About three years ago we were a very traditional asset management company. We had a product line up that focused on fixed income and capital markets. Since then there has been a realisation that a sustainable Pakistan heavily relied on the agriculture sector. Our thinking changed. We began thinking of out of the box products that will offer diversity in financial products the industry has to offer, but also be long-term beneficial to the economy
Mir Adil Rashid, CEO of HBL Asset Management Limited
We weren’t initially sure if a non-financial subsidiary should be established by a bank but we gave the go-ahead which was a first. I would hope that HBL Zarai Services Limited becomes viable, credible, and reputable. HBL is the largest bank in Pakistan with a lot of resources. But for this initial step to have an impact, other banks must follow suit; it cannot just be HBL. And since these other banks have fewer resources, they will have to feel that this sort of service is profitable. The reason we gave the permission is that we sense this can be profitable and this is what HBL must do
income enhancement for the farming communities throughout the country.”
The remarks had not come from nowhere. Agriculture has always been a hot topic. The devastation of the 2022 mega-floods had put Pakistan’s climate driven farming crisis on the global map. For the banking industry, it was a moment of concern. Agricultural lending was already considered a risky business, and the threat of climate-induced disaster was shaking the foundations of what everyone, including farmers, knew about the farm business.
“We know that agri-financing is riskier. And if a bank wants to just do low-risk banking, then this sector is challenging. We need to keep in mind that there will be bad years like we are having with the floods, and there will be good years where we get major bumper crops,” says Aamir Kureshi, Head Products Transactional Services & Solution Delivery of HBL. According to him, the potential in agriculture not only outweighs its downsides, but is key to our country’s progress. Farmers, as he explains, genuinely want to make it work.
“As Pakistan’s premier bank, we have observed one thing. Even when a farmer is
impacted by no fault of his own, they generally remain credible borrowers. We have seen most farmers revive themselves over 2-3 crop cycles. Their land is not going anywhere, and neither are they. They depend on the land and take what they get from it, which means recoveries are not the biggest concern.”
Behind the scenes, HBL Group management had made a conscious decision to focus more on the agricultural sector. In the years since, HBL Group has invested in sector expertise, building products that are aligned with crop cycles rather than collateral, and understanding farming as a practice rather than a credit category.
The most visible expression of HBL’s commitment towards the agriculture sector emerged in the formation of HBL Zarai Services Limited. Announced at the very same launch event, HBL Zarai Services Limited is unique in the history of Pakistani banking. For starters, it is the first time SBP has given approval to a bank to set up a fully owned non-financial subsidiary.
HBL Zarai Services Limited, you see, does not provide financial services. Its purpose
is to provide facilities and services to farmers and rural communities ranging from storage space and farming equipment to seeds, fertilizer, and agronomic advice. Essentially, it is an agricultural consultancy that also doubles as a one-stop shop for the average farmer. HBL Zarai Services Limited launched its operations with a “Dera” in Burewala in February 2024. The concept behind it is simple. If Pakistan’s agriculture is to thrive, it does not just need banks to finance farmers. It also requires that farmers have access to other agricultural services that understand their needs.
In this way HBL Zarai Services Limited acts both as a service for farmers, but also as an arm of the bank that can connect with agrarian communities and help to understand their needs. It is a sentiment that was re-enforced in a recent op-ed written by HBL’s Chairman, Sultan Ali Allana. “Fostering real progress in agriculture cannot rely exclusively on expanding credit. True agricultural advancement can only be achieved when mechanisation, technology, scientific training and the use of AI tools for weather predictability and resource management are at the heart of the national
Within HBL Group, there are not one but multiple entities playing their part in enhancing Pakistan’s food security by mitigating the myriad challenges faced by the agricultural sector. Whether it’s lending to farmers (HBL), providing insurance (HBL Microfinance Bank), agronomy services (HBL Zarai Services Limited) or creating an alternate asset class for savings (HBL Asset Management Limited)
Muhammad Nassir Salim, President & CEO - HBL
Dr. Inayat Hussain, Deputy Governor of the SBP
The original idea behind HBL Zarai Services Limited was to bridge the long-standing gap between financial services and the actual on-ground needs of farmers. We realized that while access to finance is critical, it alone cannot transform agriculture and this vital insight led to our ‘more than just a bank’ approach
Amer Aziz, HBL Zarai Services Limited CEO
agenda,” he writes. “This requires moving beyond banking towards a model where financial support is closely interwoven with a push for innovation, capacity-building, and knowledge-sharing.”
It was this spirit to go beyond just banking and credit that made HBL Zarai Services Limited such an attractive prospect and also earned it the SBP’s approval. In fact, HBL Zarai Services Limited marked an unusual regulatory departure. At the subsidiary’s launch, Deputy Governor of the SBP, Dr. Inayat Hussain explained: “We weren’t initially sure if a non-financial subsidiary should be established by a bank but we gave the go-ahead which was a first. I would hope that HBL Zarai Services Limited becomes viable, credible, and reputable. HBL is the largest bank in Pakistan with a lot of resources. But for this initial step to have an impact, other banks must follow suit; it cannot just be HBL. And since these other banks have fewer resources, they will have to feel that this sort of service is profitable. The reason we gave the permission is that we sense this can be profitable and this is what HBL must do.”
HBL Zarai Services Limited was created to solve a long-standing problem: credit alone
had not translated into agricultural transformation. The bank wanted an institution capable of working directly with farmers, understanding crop and livestock practices, and providing technical support beyond the remit of traditional lending units. In conversation with Profit, HBL Zarai Services Limited CEO, Amer Aziz described it as a ‘bridge’. “The original idea behind HBL Zarai Services Limited was to bridge the long-standing gap between financial services and the actual on-ground needs of farmers. We realized that while access to finance is critical, it alone cannot transform agriculture and this vital insight led to our ‘more than just a bank’ approach,” he explains. “HBL Zarai Services Limited operates as an enabler for HBL’s agri-financing business by de-risking agriculture at the ground level. We help farmers adopt better practices, use quality inputs, and connect to stable markets; all of which improve their creditworthiness. Our on-ground teams also generate New-to-Bank agri-banking leads for HBL,” he adds.
HBL Zarai Services Limited is, to put it mildly, the beating heart of HBL’s shift towards agriculture. It is the foremost expression of intent from the bank regarding its ap-
Microfinance acts as an entry point for financial inclusion. Once a farmer gains access to a loan, they often begin using other financial services. This progression builds long-term resilience for households and contributes directly to rural development
Amir Khan, the HBL Microfinance Bank’s President & CEO
proach towards agriculture. But HBL Zarai Services Limited is not where HBL Group’s involvement and intent begins and ends. As Sultan Ali Allana, Chairman - HBL, opined in his recent Op-ed, HBL’s strategic intent could best be summed up as ‘Beyond Banking, Sowing Change’. The Bank and all its subsidiaries are working in tandem to operationalize this strategic intent. Profit spoke with the senior executives of HBL Group all of whom spoke the same language.
How the rest of HBL shapes up
Within HBL’s own framing, this broader direction shapes its multi-subsidiary approach.
In an interview with Profit, Muhammad Nassir Salim, President & CEO - HBL, explained how the different arms of the HBL Group play their part in Pakistan’s agriculture sector. “Within HBL Group, there are not one but multiple entities playing their part in enhancing Pakistan’s food security by mitigating the myriad challenges faced by the agricultural sector. Whether it’s lending to farmers (HBL), providing insurance (HBL Microfinance Bank), agronomy services (HBL Zarai Services Limited) or creating an alternate asset class for savings (HBL Asset Management Limited)”.
HBL Group - this includes the HBL Bank and the HBL Microfinance Bank - is the single largest lender to the farming community with a loan portfolio of over Rs. 100 billion.
At HBL Microfinance Bank, agriculture and livestock have become central to the business model. The institution now serves more than 176,000 agricultural borrowers and maintains a portfolio of Rs 54.4 billion, representing 56 percent of its conventional loan book. “Microfinance acts as an entry point for financial inclusion. Once a farmer gains access to a loan, they often begin using other financial services. This progression builds long-term resilience for households and contributes directly to rural development,” said Amir Khan, the HBL
We know that agri-financing is riskier. And if a bank wants to just do low-risk banking, then this sector is challenging. We need to keep in mind that there will be bad years like we are having with the floods, and there will be good years where we get major bumper crops
Aamir Kureshi, Head of Products Transactional Services & Solution Delivery at HBL
Microfinance Bank’s President & CEO.
“At HBL Microfinance Bank, agriculture and livestock will always remain our focus area. The growth of agriculture directly translates into the growth of the microfinance sector. Our studies indicate that while the potential client base for microfinance in Pakistan stands at around 40 million, only about 12 million are currently being served. More than half of those still unserved are directly linked to agriculture, showing the scale of the opportunity and responsibility before us.”
According to Amir Khan, insurance continues to be a big problem. “Insurance on a wide scale is the need of the hour. HBL Microfinance Bank currently offers two kinds of insurance to farmers, one is credit-linked life insurance, and the other is asset insurance of tractors financed through us. Insurance has always been important, but in the current scenario of extreme weather events, and increasing vulnerabilities, it has become absolutely critical. Farmers form one of the most vulnerable segments of society, and while insurance can protect them, many still see it as an additional cost rather than a safeguard.”
A parallel recalibration has taken place at HBL Asset Management Limited, CEO Mir Adil Rashid described the shift: “About three years ago we were a very traditional asset management company. We had a product line up that focused on fixed income and capital markets. Since then there has been a realisation that a sustainable Pakistan heavily relied on the agriculture sector. Our thinking changed. We began thinking of out of the box products that will offer diversity in financial products the industry has to offer, but also be long-term beneficial to the economy.”
“Our commodities are mismanaged,” says Mir Adil Rashid. “In the same year we end up importing and exporting the same products. On top of this the government sometimes pays these farmers subsidies. If a farmer is getting his financing needs met through informal channels and is paying 40-50% interest on these loans, of course he will need a subsidy. If the industry can service these farmers then the subsidy can be used in better ways.”
The road ahead
HBL’s leaders also connect the strategy to future market opportunities. “Everyone has a renewed and pronounced focus on agriculture in recent years. On an industry level attitudes have definitely changed”, said Aamir Kureshi. “I believe one turning point was when the country was under financial stress a few years ago.” He referenced the 2021–2023 crisis of foreign exchange shortages and record inflation, during which banks earned substantial returns on government securities due to high interest rates. That environment, he suggested, highlighted the need for more sustainable, real-economy growth”.
“Many people still do not realize that dairy and livestock form a larger part of Pakistan’s agricultural sector than crops. Historically, there has been a lack of understanding about this — both among the general public and within the banking sector — but that is now changing,” says Aamir Kureshi. “We have also observed that most crop farmers are, in fact, also livestock and dairy farmers, even if only on a subsistence level. Traditionally, agricultural financing has focused on major crops such as wheat, cotton, and maize. However, a few years ago, we began testing and expanding our presence in the dairy sector as well. Today, roughly 15% of our overall agriculture portfolio is dairy-focused.”
“There is still a long way to go. Banks must also develop a clear understanding of the livestock lifecycle, which is far more complex than traditional crop cycles. That said, we have already begun shifting our focus toward the dairy and livestock segments — particularly livestock — as it represents a larger, yet still significantly underpenetrated, opportunity within the agricultural economy.”
Still, systemic constraints remain. The average farm size continues to shrink — from 6.4 acres in 2010 to 5.1 acres in 2024 — and 97.5 percent of farms operate below 12.5 acres. Farmers have expanded cultivated area to 89 percent of total farmland, and gross cropped area has grown from 67.9 million acres to 82.7 million acres, reflecting intensified land use. Yet major crops
saw a combined 13.5 percent drop in production in the most recent year.
Without crop insurance, natural catastrophe coverage or reliable water management systems, both farmers and lenders remain exposed to climate volatility. Executives across the sector argue that any long-term expansion of agricultural finance requires government participation in insurance frameworks.
Within this landscape, HBL Group’s model represents one of the most coordinated attempts by a private bank to build a comprehensive agricultural ecosystem. It combines credit, advisory services, microfinance inclusion, investment products and institutional alignment across subsidiaries.
Aamir Kureshi told Profit, this is a market where competition is not an issue. “I keep saying that the market potential and need for agri financing is incredibly high. The more banks that want to participate the better. In fact, if more banks want to come in, we are even willing to help them.” HBL’s model is one that other banks can follow. It shows that a sustained focus on agriculture is not just workable, but it will also be good for Pakistan’s larger economic picture. And given how large the agriculture sector is in Pakistan, there is more than enough room for other banks to take the plunge.
And as HBL’s President & CEO, Muhammad Nassir Salim said, “HBL knows its role in leading the way. We’re glad to see other players now replicating different forms and versions of essentially the same model. It’s encouraging because banking-sector penetration in agriculture is still below 10%, meaning 90% of farmers remain in the informal sector. The more we equip them with modern agricultural skills — like laser levelling instead of flood irrigation or adopting drip irrigation — the more productivity will rise. These interventions can uplift Pakistan’s agricultural economy by up to 40%. They will create prosperity at the grower level and build a strong knowledge base, which is exactly what we need.” Competition, it seems, is not the issue here. When it comes to Pakistan’s agriculture sector, the issue is survival, and there are no two ways about it. n
COVER STORY
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The company has also managed to secure alternative input suppliers are disruption on trade with India
After a bruising decade of price controls and currency shocks, Pakistan’s pharmaceutical industry has been enjoying a long-awaited upswing. For
The Searle Company Ltd, one of the country’s leading drug makers, that boom is no longer just about charging more for the same pills. Management is now openly pitching a future where growth comes from selling many more packs, at home and abroad, rather than relying on repeated price resets.
That shift in tone was evident at Searle’s latest corporate briefing in late November, where the company disclosed that its revenue had grown at a compound annual rate of 17% over the past five years, and by a brisk 28% year on year in the first quarter of FY26. Crucially, executives told investors they are targeting about 23% growth in volumes and “slightly lower than 40%” in value terms – signalling that, unlike the recent past, the bulk of incremental sales is expected to come from more boxes shipped, not merely higher prices per unit.
The message is clear: the one-off benefit from drug price deregulation has largely been booked. The next leg of the story depends on whether Searle can outgrow the market by increasing its physical footprint in pharmacies, hospitals and export destinations.
Like most listed pharmaceutical firms in Pakistan, Searle benefited handsomely from the partial deregulation of drug prices between 2023 and 2025, which allowed companies to rebase prices after years of suppressed margins amid steep rupee devaluation and inflation. Sector-wide sales reached roughly Rs 916 billion in FY24, with an average five-year revenue CAGR of 17% for the industry – a figure Searle has matched over the same period.
But where many rivals still talk primarily about “price catch-up”, Searle’s management is trying to convince the market that its growth runway is increasingly volume-led. In the first quarter of FY26, revenue grew 28% year on year; against that, the company is guiding for around 23% volumetric growth for the year, im-
plying that unit growth rather than price hikes will account for most of the topline expansion.
That nuance matters. Price-driven booms tend to be short-lived, especially in a politically sensitive sector like pharmaceuticals where regulators and patients push back against sharp increases. Volume-led growth, by contrast, points to deeper structural gains: more prescriptions, better penetration of chronic therapies, and fresh export markets.
Searle’s cost lines reveal the commercial muscle being flexed to achieve that. Management acknowledges that distribution expenses have risen sharply, broadly in line with revenue, as the company has “adopted a more aggressive approach in the market”, ramping up field forces, promotional activities and logistics to push higher throughput.
On the export side, the company says shipments now account for 11% of total revenue, making Searle Pakistan’s second-largest pharmaceutical exporter. That proportional share is likely to rise if management’s view of the industry proves correct: Searle expects Pakistan’s overall pharmaceutical market to grow by 15–20% annually and export receipts for the sector to reach between US$3 billion and US$4 billion by 2030, from an estimated US$457 million in FY25.
Such projections may sound ambitious, but they are framed against hard data. Pakistan’s exports of pharmaceutical products were about US$341 million in FY24, up from US$328 million a year earlier, according to Pakistan Bureau of Statistics figures, and climbed further to roughly US$457 million in FY25 –the fastest annual growth in two decades. Searle, with its deepening export footprint, clearly wants a larger slice of that pie.
The company is also juggling shorter-term pressures. Management told investors that the ongoing closure of Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan could shave as much as Rs 2 billion off full-year sales if it persists, given the importance of that market for Searle’s products. Yet executives sounded relatively sanguine, arguing that if the border reopens,
pent-up demand will create a surge of orders as Afghan importers scramble to restock.
If Searle feels confident about chasing volume, it is because it already enjoys an unusually broad and entrenched presence across therapeutic areas. The company says it has an 89% presence across all major pharmaceutical categories in Pakistan and ranks number one in cardiovascular, gynaecology (spelt “gyane” in the internal slide deck) and cough suppressant segments, as well as leading positions in pain management.
Its top five brands are a microcosm of that breadth:
• Extor, a blockbuster antihypertensive, generates about Rs 4.5 billion in annual revenue.
• Nuberol, widely prescribed for musculoskeletal pain and migraine, brings in roughly Rs 4 billion.
• Hydryllin, a long-standing cough and bronchial remedy, contributes around Rs 3 billion.
• Tramal, a well-known tramadol analgesic brand, and Peditral, an oral rehydration solution popular with paediatricians, each deliver more than Rs 1 billion in sales.
Together, these brands straddle chronic cardiovascular care, acute pain, respiratory relief and paediatric hydration – conditions that drive repeat prescriptions and high patient loyalty. They also sit in therapy areas where Pakistan’s unmet medical need remains large: hypertension and diabetes are widespread, while respiratory and gastrointestinal infections are common across all income levels.
Beyond these workhorses, Searle’s catalogue spans hundreds of stock-keeping units across cardiology, pulmonology, neurology, allergy, gastroenterology, women’s health, paediatrics and more, plus a growing portfolio of nutraceuticals and consumer health products. Industry data show that Searle is the market leader in cardiovascular, pain management, gynaecology and cough suppressants and comes second in pulmonology, neurology and paediatrics, while ranking as the second-larg-
est local company by units sold.
The company’s next act, however, is in higher-value biological medicines. Searle is already manufacturing four biological products and plans to launch five more, including semaglutide – the high-profile GLP-1 analogue used globally for type-2 diabetes and obesity – and Denosumab, a monoclonal antibody for osteoporosis.
Semaglutide has been introduced in tablet form through toll manufacturing, but management says the key focus is on a pre-filled syringe presentation that will be produced at its Port Qasim biosciences facility and priced “competitively” relative to imported brands. The company recently signed a licence agreement with China’s Mabwell Pharmaceuticals to manufacture and market Denosumab biosimilars in Pakistan, underlining its commitment to moving up the value chain in biologics. (Searle Company)
In a country where non-communicable diseases such as diabetes and osteoporosis are on the rise, this portfolio tilt towards complex injectables could both support higher margins and open doors in regional export markets that lack local biologics capacity.
Searle’s present ambitions are rooted in a long history that mirrors the evolution of Pakistan’s own pharmaceutical industry.
The company traces its lineage to G.D. Searle & Co., the American drug maker founded in Omaha in 1888. The US firm established a Pakistani subsidiary in 1965, initially manufacturing a small range of products – including Aldactone, Lomotil, Diodoquin, Ovulen, Neomycin sulphate, Probanthine and Hydryllin – at a modest facility in Karachi’s SITE industrial area.
In 1993, as part of a global restructuring, G.D. Searle divested its Pakistan business. The local operations were acquired by International Brands (Private) Ltd (IBL), a Karachi-based distribution powerhouse that had grown from a trading firm into a diversified group handling logistics for multinationals such as Unilever, British American Tobacco and major pharmaceutical companies.
Following the acquisition, Searle Pakistan was converted into a public limited company and listed on the local bourses. It was formally rebranded as The Searle Company Ltd in 2012. Today, IBL remains the controlling shareholder with a roughly 56% stake, while the company’s shares continue to trade on the Pakistan Stock Exchange under the ticker SEARL.
From its modest beginnings, Searle has grown into a vertically integrated manufacturer and marketer with multiple plants. Company presentations show seven manufacturing facilities in Pakistan – four in Karachi and three in Lahore – covering tablets, capsules, liquids, injectables, biopharmaceuticals, nutraceuticals
and consumer products. Tablet capacity is more than three billion units annually, with utilisation hovering in the low-seventies, while liquid formulations run at about six million litres a year.
The group has not been shy about restructuring when needed. In 2024, Searle agreed to sell about 90.6% of its stake in Searle Pakistan (formerly OBS Pakistan) to an IJARA Capital-led consortium, in a deal aimed at deleveraging the parent company’s balance sheet. Management recently reiterated that the payment plan for that sale remains on track and is expected to conclude by early 2027.
Taken together, the history underscores how Searle has morphed from a foreign subsidiary into a domestically controlled champion with regional ambitions – a trajectory shared by several Pakistani pharma names but few with quite the same breadth of brands and categories.
If volumes and exports are Searle’s offensive strategy, securing the supply of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) is its most important defensive move.
For years, Pakistan’s drug makers have relied heavily on India as a source of APIs and finished medicines. Officials estimate that about 30–40% of the industry’s raw materials came from across the border, making India a critical supplier for everything from cardiovascular drugs to antibiotics.
That dependence has become a glaring vulnerability as political tensions between the two neighbours have escalated. The suspension of formal trade and periodic tightening of informal routes have raised fears of medicine shortages and cost spikes, prompting the Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP) and the private sector to scramble for alternatives in China, Russia and Europe.
Searle’s management says it has already moved decisively on this front. According to the November briefing, the company has either shifted or developed alternative API sources from India to China, Brazil and various European suppliers, such that the proportion of its inputs exposed to India has dropped to just 1–2%.
In practice, that means Searle is less likely than some peers to be caught out by sudden policy shifts or border closures. It also gives the firm greater leverage in price negotiations and reduces the risk of production disruptions for key brands like Extor and Hydryllin. The diversification dovetails with the company’s export ambitions too, since many foreign regulators prefer or require inputs sourced from facilities with stringent quality certifications in Europe, China or Latin America.
Of course, replacing Indian APIs is not without cost. Alternative suppliers may have higher prices or longer lead times, and Pakistani firms often have to invest in revalidation,
regulatory filings and technical transfers. But for Searle, which is trying to present itself as a long-term regional player, the short-term pain is being framed as the price of strategic resilience.
Searle’s story is unfolding against a broader shift in Pakistan’s pharmaceutical sector from a domestically focused, import-substitution model to a more export-oriented one.
PBS data show that exports of pharmaceutical goods in FY23–24 reached roughly US$341 million, up from about US$328 million a year earlier, with volumes up an eye-catching 44.4%. UN COMTRADE figures suggest that by calendar 2024, exports of pharmaceutical products had risen further to about US$421 million. Industry associations now estimate that, for FY25, exports have jumped to around US$457 million – a 34% increase and the strongest growth in two decades.
Several forces are driving this. Partial price deregulation at home has improved margins and enabled firms to invest in larger, more sophisticated plants; the sector’s total domestic sales are now estimated at roughly Rs 916 billion, with healthy growth expected as the population ages and chronic diseases proliferate. At the same time, policy reforms under Pakistan’s Special Investment Facilitation Council and WHO pre-qualifications for some facilities have improved global perceptions of the country’s manufacturing standards.
Searle sits squarely at the intersection of these trends. With exports already accounting for about 11% of its revenue and shipments going to a dozen countries, the company is regarded as Pakistan’s second-largest pharmaceutical exporter. It currently serves markets across Africa, the Middle East and Asia and is preparing to enter the United Arab Emirates after establishing a presence in highly regulated destinations such as Oman and Qatar – a sign that its plants can meet tighter quality and documentation requirements.
Management believes exports could expand significantly as Searle ramps up biopharmaceutical production at its Port Qasim facility and leverages partnerships like the Denosumab biosimilar collaboration. In principle, biologics and complex injectables can command higher prices and face less generic competition than standard tablets and syrups, making them attractive candidates for markets with ageing populations and growing middle classes.
There are headwinds, of course. Regulatory environments in potential target markets can be opaque, currency volatility complicates pricing, and the need to maintain high-quality standards places constant pressure on capital expenditure and working capital. Yet the direction of travel is unmistakable: Pakistan’s pharma companies are no longer content to sell only at home, and Searle is among the firms leading that outward march. n
Beco continues to soar and invest in even more growth
The company expects its production capacity will double once its plant expansion is completed by the end of fiscal 2027
Beco Steel Ltd’s latest numbers suggest a company in the midst of a decisive up cycle. For the year ended June 2025 (FY25), net sales rose to roughly Rs7.5 billion from Rs3.1 billion a year earlier, a jump of about 141% as volumes grew across core long steel categories and copper related activity scaled up. Profit swung back into the black, with profit after tax of Rs111 million against a Rs91 million loss in FY24, while operating profit improved to Rs251 million from a loss in the prior year. Management’s discussion around the results pointed to a simple driver: more product out of the gates, supported by steadier gross margins despite an often choppy commodities backdrop.
Momentum continued into the new year. In 1QFY26, revenue accelerated to Rs2.3 billion from Rs446m in 1QFY25, an increase of about 420%, while profit after tax surged to Rs150m, up from a modest Rs2m a year earlier. EBITDA for the quarter climbed to Rs223m from Rs46m, reflecting operating leverage as fixed costs were spread over a much larger throughput. Although the quarterly gross margin eased to 10% from 14% in the same quarter last year, the absolute gross profit more than trebled because of scale. Selling and distribution costs remained minimal, administrative expenses were kept in check, and financial charges stayed negligible thanks to a conservative balance sheet approach.
Management links the earnings inflection to the volume up tick and supportive realisations, particularly in copper linked activity during a period when London Metal Exchange prices trended higher. The company cautions, however, that LME driven gains can reverse if global prices soften, which is why it is pursuing product and capacity diversification to smooth earnings across cycles. For now, guidance signals stable gross margins so long as international price swings and import costs
do not worsen materially.
On the funding front, the board is prioritising internally generated cash and sponsor support over bank borrowings. The balance sheet already carried about Rs240m of sponsor loans as of the latest briefing, and recent increases in authorised capital – alongside a sponsor share sale – were aimed at mobilising resources for capex. The sponsors have indicated that proceeds from their sales would be on lent to the company, helping to keep conventional finance costs contained during the build out phase.
All told, the operating updates and financial prints paint a picture of a small cap producer growing into a new scale, with the first quarter’s profits rising sharply on a much larger revenue base, and a capital plan designed to prolong that trajectory into FY26–27.
The company focuses on long steel and engineered sections that find their way into industrial supply chains and infrastructure. Its current catalogue includes angles, channels, rounded bars, billets, T iron and girders – products that feed construction, power distribution, engineering, and consumer durables manufacturers. The firm primarily sells B2B, and its round bars are supplied into precision components such as motor shafts and rotors for household and industrial fans; notable buyers include GFC Fans, Pak Fans and Millat. Angles are produced to meet WAPDA specifications (a critical demand line in Pakistan’s power sector), while channels are used extensively in solar installations, an area that has seen brisk investment.
The cost structure matters in a commodities business. Management disclosed a per kg production cost for rebar of roughly Rs50, incorporating re melt, continuous casting and rolling. Energy is a major input: the process consumes about 810–820 units of WAPDA electricity per ton of rebar, underscoring why the board is adding on site solar capacity to offset grid costs and hedge outage risk. A 5
MW solar plant is included in the expansion blueprint.
The centrepiece of Beco’s capex is a new rebar line scheduled to come online around October 2026. Once operational and ramped, management expects group sales to double relative to pre expansion levels, with FY26–27 sales targeted at around Rs15 billion as capacity and product slate expand. In parallel, the company is progressing towards direct qualification as a WAPDA vendor (today it sells angles to WAPDA projects via intermediaries that handle galvanising). This move should remove a layer of intermediation and could lift margins and predictability of orders from the power sector.
Recent public disclosures have reinforced that direction. In early November, the company flagged entry into the power sector supply chain for WAPDA and DISCO projects, initially via indirect vendors but with an eye to becoming an approved supplier. Separately, Beco signalled a planned diversification into deformed bars, anchoring the expansion with a new furnace and continuous casting mill. Public reporting put the annual rebar capacity at about 72,000 tons, and also highlighted the 5 MW solar plant as part of the same programme. The firm even notched an export milestone in mid 2025 with a shipment of copper ingots to Hong Kong, a reminder that foreign currency inflows – however modest at this stage – could supplement domestic revenue as the metals book scales.
Instead of leaning on high cost bank lines in a tight money environment, Beco is relying on sponsor loans and equity measures. The company also notes that land is held at cost without revaluation, signalling a conservative approach to the balance sheet ahead of the expansion. The capital programme concentrates on plant and machinery for the new long steel line and the solar installation, with the rebar unit the single largest driver of the capacity
step up targeted by end FY27. If the build stays on schedule, management expects production capacity to roughly double as the plant ramps, aligning with its sales doubling guidance.
Beyond industrial customers in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the company’s own materials emphasise a footprint that spans construction, energy and manufacturing. Corporate literature points to a Lahore headquarters on Peco Road, Badami Bagh, a long standing metals and fabrication hub that offers proximity to a deep base of wholesale and contracting trade.
Beco Steel Ltd is a public company listed on the Pakistan Stock Exchange under the Engineering sector (ticker: BECO). The exchange’s profile also records that Beco Steel is the renamed successor to Ravi Textile Mills Ltd, with the fiscal year ending in June and a free float of about 65%. The firm’s chairperson and chief executive are listed as Muhammad Zain ul Afaq and Ali Shafique Chaudhary, respectively, with the registered address at 79, Peco Road, Badami Bagh, Lahore. As of late November, PSX data also showed a credit of sub divided ordinary shares, a corporate action that underpins the EPS adjustments in market databases.
Company materials add colour to that transformation. The name change to Beco Steel took place in FY21, part of a pivot from textiles to metals that also involved a reverse merger through which Beco acquired two operational melting units and one re rolling unit. The corporate narrative places the brand in a third generation industrial lineage, tracing back to Chaudhry Muhammad Noor’s steel business in 1962 and highlighting a family hand in the sector’s development over decades. While the branding and legacy references evoke a broader industrial heritage, the listed entity today is squarely focused on long steel and engineered sections, with an expanding interest in rebar and power sector hardware.
From a capital markets perspective, the past year has been transformative. PSX shows that the share price has climbed dramatically year on year, reflecting both improved operating performance and the market’s read through on expansion prospects. The exchange’s financials mirror the company’s own reported topline and profit swing in FY25 and the strong start to FY26, albeit with the EPS and per share statistics standardised after the share sub division.
The strategic posture is pragmatic. Management acknowledges that copper margins – a contributor to recent profitability – are tethered to LME prices, which can make quarterly prints volatile. The plan to diversify into rebar at meaningful scale, build direct sales lanes into WAPDA, and install on site solar to stabilise the power bill suggests an attempt to de risk earnings while expanding capacity. The
company’s preference to avoid conventional bank debt, using sponsor loans and equity actions to finance capex, helps contain finance costs and gives headroom to absorb commodity swings during the ramp up.
Pakistan’s long steel market is concentrated but contested. On the rebar side –where Beco intends to expand – Amreli Steels describes itself as the largest rebar producer in Pakistan, with a brand that has long dominated retail and projects in urban centres. Like many peers, Amreli has been navigating a tough macro cycle marked by high interest rates, power tariff inflation and a slowdown in private construction, and recent corporate briefings and public filings detail restructuring steps and a plan to regain capacity utilisation and market share as conditions stabilise.
Recent disclosures also show Amreli’s FY25 was loss making, the result of depressed volumes and margin pressure; the company has communicated efforts to streamline operations and address its capital structure so as to restore profitability. This context matters: as Beco readies a rebar line, it will enter a market where established leaders are defending share, balancing price discipline with the need to fill mills. In such a setting, cost efficiency – from meltshop to rolling mill, and then through to distribution – can be as decisive as name recognition.
Mughal Iron & Steel Industries remains another heavyweight, with a broad product slate that spans billets, bars and structural profiles and a footprint that touches retail and projects alike. Its latest annual report outlines a diversified long products business with the scale and supply chain depth to ride out cyclicality better than smaller mills. For a new entrant in rebar, Mughal’s presence means buyers will compare on both price and consistently meeting specifications, especially on large EPC jobs or institutional frameworks.
Beyond these two giants, a cluster of strong regional players – including Agha Steel and Ittefaq Steel – rounds out the rebar landscape, while dozens of smaller rerollers and service centres compete on niche grades, delivery and credit terms. Recent market research summarises the demand drivers (population growth, urbanisation, public works spending) and lists Amreli, Agha and Ittefaq among key names in the rebar segment, which suggests that Beco’s push must be sharp on positioning: either as a cost effective supplier into project channels (where its B2B DNA and WAPDA oriented catalogue are an asset) or as a focused player in regions where logistics give it an edge.
In engineering products and structural sections – angles, channels, girders – competition is fragmented, with local rerollers vying in tender driven channels. Here, specification
compliance and approvals can matter as much as price. Beco’s move to qualify directly with WAPDA (rather than selling via intermediaries who galvanise and then supply to power utilities) could streamline the value chain and improve margins. A November notice reported by the financial press confirmed that Beco had begun supplying into WAPDA and DISCO projects through indirect vendors, a stepping stone to direct listing on approved vendor rosters. If that status is secured, it could lock in repeatable offtake for standardised power sector components.
What sets Beco apart? First, timing: the company is entering rebar just as sector leaders are focusing on balance sheet repair and operational discipline, which may dull the appetite for aggressive capacity additions from incumbents. Second, product adjacency: it already produces angles and channels tailored for power and solar installations, giving it relationships in utility and EPC circles that can be cross sold once the rebar line is live. Third, energy strategy: a 5 MW solar plant will not eliminate grid reliance, but it buffers the power cost curve, a key variable in meltshop economics. Finally, capital discipline: funding through sponsor support and equity actions lowers the risk of a debt service squeeze if the cycle softens.
Risks remain. Management itself notes that copper margins can swing with LME prices; a downturn would trim metals mix profits just as the rebar line is ramping. Any delay in plant commissioning – targeted for October 2026 – could push the capacity doubling into FY28. Grid power tariffs and load management issues remain economy wide hurdles, and a more aggressive stance from incumbents in regional markets could narrow spreads. On the flip side, a benign commodities tape and steady public sector infrastructure outlay could allow Beco to fill the new mill quickly, especially if it secures direct WAPDA vendor status and leverages relationships in solar and industrial channels.
Beco Steel heads into FY26–27 with two things working for it: a demonstrated ability to grow volumes and profits off a low base, and a capex plan that, if executed on time, could double production capacity by the end of FY27. FY25 and the first quarter of FY26 confirm that scale is showing up in the financials, even with margins that remain modest by global standards. The rebar project, 5 MW solar installation, and push for direct utility qualification together aim to expand the addressable market and stabilise earnings. In a sector where many producers are juggling high power costs and balance sheet pressures, Beco’s lean financing and B2B orientation may prove the advantages that keep its growth on a straight bar rather than a twist. n
At-Tahur revenue growth picks up the pace
The company is diversifying its product lines in collaboration with other partners
At-Tahur Ltd, the Lahore-based dairy and food company behind the Prema brand, has moved from a subdued 2025 to a noticeably stronger start to 2026. Its latest numbers show that while the last financial year was largely about defending margins in the face of stagnant revenue, the new year has opened with a clear acceleration in sales.
For the year ended June 2025 (FY25), At-Tahur’s net sales in rupee terms were almost unchanged. The company booked net sales of about Rs10.7 billion versus Rs10.6 billion in FY24, a rise of only around 1%. When broken down into “revenue from contracts with customers” and various fair value gains, the picture is even flatter: a news report based on the audited accounts notes that revenue from customers actually fell about 3.3%, and that the modest overall increase in the top line came from gains on milk and livestock measured at fair value.
Despite that near-stagnant revenue base, profitability improved sharply. Profit after tax rose from roughly Rs353 million to Rs528 million, an increase of just under 50%, while earnings per share climbed from about Rs1.6 to Rs2.4. Gross profit edged up 5% to around Rs2.5 billion, nudging the gross margin from 23% to 24%, and operating profit rose 2% to about Rs1.5 billion. Net margin expanded from roughly 3% to 5%, reflecting not just better gross profitability but also lower finance costs and a reduced tax charge.
In its November corporate briefing, management stressed that the biggest driver of swings in reported earnings remains the fair value gain on biological assets – essentially the revaluation of its dairy herd and milk at milking. This mirrors a broader pattern in Pakistan’s corporate dairy farms: a sector update by VIS Credit Rating notes that imported highyield cows and their offspring are booked as biological assets whose rupee value rises when international prices increase or when the local currency devalues, leading to sizeable non-cash gains in reported profit. At-Tahur’s management is keen to emphasise that, beneath those
accounting effects, underlying operations have been relatively stable.
If FY25 was about extracting more profit from roughly the same turnover, the opening quarter of FY26 hints at a shift into a higher-growth gear. In 1QFY26, net sales rose to about Rs2.7 billion, from Rs2.3 billion in the same period of the previous year – a 19% jump. Gross profit increased 20% to around Rs618 million, and the gross margin ticked up to 23% from 22%. Operating profit for the quarter climbed 28% to about Rs348 million, while EBITDA was up 25%.
The improvement was more pronounced at the bottom line. Profit after tax for 1QFY26 almost doubled, rising from Rs24 million to Rs43 million, with the net margin moving from 1% to 2%. Earnings per share for the quarter came in at Rs0.2, up from Rs0.1 a year earlier.
The contrast is striking: a year in which revenue barely moved but profit surged thanks to better margins and valuation gains, followed by a quarter in which revenue itself is growing at a high-teens pace. Management attributes the recent up-tick to a combination of volume growth in value-added lines, deeper penetration in Karachi and a gradual easing in feed costs that had squeezed margins in earlier periods.
The company is not yet in a break-neck growth phase, and it still faces the volatility inherent in a business where fair value adjustments can inflate or deflate earnings. But the shift from flat sales in FY25 to near-20% growth in the first quarter of FY26 suggests that the revenue engine is finally catching up with the profitability narrative.
At-Tahur’s heartland remains fresh, pasteurised milk, sold under the Prema brand. The company’s mission statement, emblazoned across its corporate and consumer websites, commits it “to provide fresh, pure and healthy dairy products where every drop of milk can be traced back to source”. It promotes a tightly controlled “cow to consumer” process, based on imported Australian and Dutch cows and a fully integrated production line in which milk is pasteurised, homogenised and packed without being touched by hand.
But the Prema brand now stretches well beyond basic milk. The company’s own online store lists a broad portfolio of dairy and adjacent products, including whole milk and low-fat milk, yoghurt in natural, low-fat and sweet variants, flavoured milks (chocolate, strawberry, badam zafran), flavoured yoghurt and chunky yoghurt, zeera and podina raita, butter, cream cheese and cottage cheese, desi ghee and other fat products, honey in several monofloral varieties, and eggs from hens raised on vegetable feed.
The strategic direction is clear. In its November briefing, management again underlined that they are deliberately reducing reliance on basic fresh milk and tilting towards higher-margin, value-added products. Eggs and honey were singled out as lines generating strong double-digit margins, making them important contributors to the bottom line despite still being small in absolute volume.
That diversification is being accelerated through partnerships rather than heavy in-house capital expenditure. In September, At-Tahur signed a trademark licensing agreement with Minha Edible Oils & Ghee Mills (Pvt) Ltd. Under the deal, Minha will manufacture, market, distribute and sell edible oils and ghee under the PREMA brand, using At-Tahur’s name and reputation on the packaging. For At-Tahur, the arrangement allows an asset-light entry into the crowded edible-oil category, broadening the brand’s reach without building its own refinery. Management told investors that all regulatory approvals for edible oil production have now been obtained.
A second partnership is under way with Clover, focused not on products but on energy and sustainability. The two companies are collaborating on a biogas project in which Clover will use cow dung from At-Tahur’s farms to feed biodigesters, producing methane to run power generators. The initial generation target is 500–600 kilowatts, with the possibility of scaling beyond 1 megawatt in later phases. In a sector beset by high electricity tariffs, the ability to generate its own power from waste material is both a cost hedge and an ESG-friendly talking point.
On the production side, At-Tahur operates as a fully integrated corporate dairy farm and processing plant. Its 2025 corporate presentation to the Pakistan Stock Exchange lists a production capacity of about 21,100 metric tonnes a year and notes an approximate herd size of 6,000 animals. The latest briefing updated the herd figure to around 6,500 animals, split roughly half and half between mature cattle and calves, indicating continued investment in herd renewal.
Distribution remains highly urban-centred, with Lahore as the home market. But At-Tahur is now intensifying its push into Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city. Management disclosed that the company currently ships one 40-foot container of milk and one 20-foot container of eggs to Karachi each week, with plans to increase the frequency as demand builds. The Prema e-commerce platform offers delivery in Lahore within 24 hours and selected localities in Karachi and other cities within 48 hours, further extending its reach.
In broad terms, At-Tahur’s growth strategy combines:
• Deeper penetration in existing urban markets, particularly Karachi;
• Extension into new product categories such as honey, eggs and edible oils through partnerships and brand licensing;
• Operational efficiency and energy self-reliance, via initiatives like the Clover biogas project;
• Continued positioning as a “pure and natural” premium brand, emphasising traceability and the absence of additives or growth hormones.
The challenge will be to translate that strategy into sustained double-digit top-line growth, rather than occasional bursts around a flat trend line. The early numbers for FY26 suggest that At-Tahur may be starting to do just that.
At-Tahur Ltd’s story is relatively recent by the standards of Pakistan’s food sector but already eventful. The company was incorporated in March 2007 as a private limited company and later converted to an unlisted public company in 2015. It operates a corporate dairy farm and processing plant near Kasur, south of Lahore.
In 2008, At-Tahur launched Prema milk, a pasteurised, homogenised fresh milk brand aimed squarely at urban, health-conscious consumers. The name “At-Tahur” itself references the Arabic word for “purity”, and both the company and brand marketing revolve around this concept. At-Tahur claims that Prema milk is free from additives and artificial growth hormones and that every drop is traceable “from grass to glass”.
Prema was one of the first dedicated pasteurised fresh milk brands to be listed on
the Pakistan Stock Exchange. At-Tahur’s initial public offering in July 2018 raised capital at a strike price of Rs21 per share and made it the first pure-play pasteurised dairy company on the bourse. Since then, the company has gradually repositioned itself from a pure dairy operator to what its PSX briefing calls a business “primarily producing and processing milk and dairy products and becoming a food company”.
Financially, At-Tahur has travelled a familiar path for asset-heavy dairy start-ups: substantial capital expenditure and leverage in the early years, followed by gradual improvement in margins as the herd matures and processing volumes rise. A slide in the company’s 2025 briefing shows sales climbing from about Rs1.8 billion in 2020 to roughly Rs5.7 billion in 2025, with gross margins improving overall despite some year-to-year fluctuation. The debt-to-equity ratio peaked in the mid-20s at the height of the expansion phase and has since been brought down to single digits, while book value per share has almost doubled over the past six years.
Management argues that the company’s prospects are “exceedingly promising” thanks to efforts to increase market share and widen participation in multiple business segments. It highlights plans to “yield better volumes” by expanding relationships with clients and offering “new and novel products and services” through ongoing research and a relentless focus on quality.
Whether At-Tahur can fully live up to that vision will depend not only on its execution but also on the broader structure of Pakistan’s food and dairy industry.
At-Tahur is very much a formal-sector player operating in a largely informal food ecosystem. Nowhere is this more evident than in dairy.
Pakistan is one of the world’s largest milk producers, with estimated annual production for human consumption of about 55 million tonnes by FY23. Yet only a small fraction of that milk is processed and sold through formal channels. VIS Credit Rating’s 2024 dairy sector update estimates that around 90% of milk is handled by the informal sector, sold as loose, raw milk by small farmers and traditional milkmen, while a mere 10% is processed into pasteurised or ultra-high-temperature (UHT) milk.
A recent report by INP-WealthPK quotes the head of the Pakistan Dairy Association as saying that more than 90% of milk in Pakistan is still sold as unpasteurised loose milk, and that even within the formal market, the UHT segment is highly concentrated, with two companies controlling over 90% of UHT sales. Against that backdrop, players like At-Tahur – focused on pasteurised fresh milk and value-added dairy – are small in volume
terms but potentially influential in shaping consumer behaviour.
The dominance of the informal sector has multiple implications:
• Price competition is intense. Loose milk often undercuts packaged milk on price, partly because it avoids sales tax and formal compliance costs.
• Quality and safety are inconsistent. Sector studies and public-health experts warn that unpasteurised milk frequently contains high bacterial loads and is prone to adulteration.
• Policy efforts to formalise the market have faltered. Punjab’s Minimum Pasteurisation Law, passed in 2017 with a view to banning loose milk, has still not been meaningfully implemented.
For companies like At-Tahur, the competitive landscape has two fronts. On one side are the large formal rivals – multinationals and big local groups in UHT and packaged dairy – which benefit from scale and national distribution. On the other is the vast, fragmented informal sector selling cheap, unregulated milk on every street corner.
At-Tahur’s response has been to position itself as a premium, quality-led brand, emphasising purity, traceability and value-added products rather than simply trying to match loose milk on price. Its expansion into eggs, honey and edible oils under the Prema label, often through partnerships, aims to build a broader “clean food” franchise rather than a single-product dairy company.
At the same time, investments such as the Clover biogas project can be seen as a hedge against the structural disadvantages that formal players face. By cutting its energy costs, At-Tahur hopes to narrow the price gap with informal competitors without compromising on food safety or profitability.
The broader policy debate over the formal versus informal food economy is likely to continue, especially as government finances remain tight and public tolerance for new subsidies is limited. But whatever stance policymakers ultimately take, the early results from FY26 indicate that At-Tahur is not waiting for the state to solve its problems. It is trying to grow its way out of a flat revenue patch through a mix of product innovation, partnerships and geographical expansion.
If the company can sustain the kind of nearly 20% sales growth it has just posted in the first quarter of FY26, while keeping a lid on costs and managing the vicissitudes of fair value accounting, then the flatness of 2025 may come to be seen as a pause before a more sustained growth phase – one in which Prema evolves from a Lahore-centred milk brand into a nationwide name spanning multiple food categories. n
Stylers bets big on increased production capacity
A high customer concentration problem will likely be mitigated by being able to serve other major customers with more production capacity
Stylers International Limited, one of Pakistan’s newest listed textile names, has just come off a year of strong growth followed by a slightly slower opening quarter to the new financial year. Its latest corporate briefing, held at the end of November, shows a company that is still expanding volumes and investing heavily, but also feeling the same tax and cost pressures that have dogged the wider textile sector.
For the financial year ended June 2025 (FY25), Stylers’ net sales climbed to about Rs20.7 billion, up 44% from roughly Rs14.4 billion in FY24. Gross profit rose from around Rs3.0 billion to Rs3.8 billion, an increase of 29%, as the company shipped more garments to overseas buyers. The top line is overwhelmingly export-driven: ratings agency PACRA notes that export sales reached just over Rs20.3 billion in FY25, while domestic sales contributed a modest Rs0.3 billion.
The headline profit, however, moved in the opposite direction. Profit after tax dropped from around Rs1.5 billion in FY24 to Rs1.3 billion in FY25, a decline of 14%. Earnings per share eased from roughly Rs3.4 to Rs2.6, even as revenue grew strongly. The culprit was margin compression: the gross margin narrowed from 21% to 18%, as higher raw-material costs, energy prices and an upward revision in the minimum wage all fed into cost of sales.
Below the gross line, expenses stepped up as well. Selling and distribution costs increased by 65% year-on-year, from around Rs0.6 billion to nearly Rs0.9 billion, while administrative expenses grew by 58%, to approximately Rs0.7 billion. Finance costs also moved higher on the back of a high-interest environment, rising by about 37% to Rs0.4 billion. Even so, operating profit still grew 12%, from just under Rs2.0 billion to about Rs2.2 billion, illustrating that the underlying business is expanding in scale despite the squeeze on margins.
The board maintained its shareholder-returns stance. Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) data show that Stylers again declared a 7.5% final cash dividend for FY25, matching the payout ratio of the previous year and
signalling confidence in cash flows despite the narrower profit.
The picture turns more mixed in the first quarter of FY26. For the three months to September 2025, net sales slipped 5% year-onyear, from about Rs4.9 billion to Rs4.6 billion. Gross profit eased from roughly Rs0.8 billion to Rs0.8 billion (down 9%), but the gross margin held steady at 17%, suggesting that pricing and input-cost management have at least stabilised for now. Selling and distribution expenses fell sharply, administrative costs rose moderately, and operating profit actually improved by 7%, reaching approximately Rs0.5 billion.
What dragged bottom-line profit lower in the quarter was taxation. Profit after tax for 1QFY26 came in at Rs230 million, down 21% from Rs290 million a year earlier, with quarterly EPS falling from roughly Rs0.6 to Rs0.5. Management points to the broader shift from a final tax regime to the normal tax regime for exporters, along with the phasing-out of Export Facilitation Scheme (EFS) benefits, as key drivers of the higher effective tax rate.
Despite the weaker start to FY26, the company is guiding towards an improvement in margins as its main new factory, Project Sunshine, ramps up production and early inefficiencies are ironed out. In other words, Stylers is accepting near-term pressure on earnings while it invests in facilities that could transform its scale over the next two years.
Stylers operates squarely in the value-added garment segment rather than basic yarn and fabric. It manufactures denim jeans, twill jeans, denim shorts, trousers, chinos and a range of children’s wear, supplying branded buyers across Europe and other export markets. Public company profiles describe it as a denim-focused manufacturer shipping more than 10 million garments a year, with a stated ambition to become a preferred supplier for brands seeking more sustainable sourcing.
Operationally, Stylers currently runs two principal garment plants: its long-standing facility at Glaxo Town on Ferozepur Road in Lahore, and the newer Project Sunshine complex. According to the company’s corporate briefing, Glaxo Town is producing around 23,000 pieces a day, while Project Sunshine is
turning out roughly 12,000 pieces a day in its initial configuration. Together, that equates to something in the region of 35,000 garments a day, or well over 9 million pieces a year at typical working-day assumptions, broadly in line with PACRA’s capacity estimate of about 9 million pieces annually.
The numbers will not stay there for long. Management has already laid foundations for two expansion phases at Project Sunshine. Because the infrastructure has been built on a 35-acre site, these phases are essentially modular instalments: each is expected to take only about four months to execute. Phase one and phase two will add around 4,000 pieces a day apiece, pushing Project Sunshine’s output up to 20,000 pieces a day once fully ramped. That would take the combined daily capacity of the two sites to roughly 43,000 garments, a meaningful step-up for a company that only listed on the PSX at the start of 2024.
The expansion is not just about chasing volume for its own sake. Stylers today has a highly concentrated customer base: management disclosed that one major buyer contributes about 40% of sales. Many of the global brands the company would like to serve directly insist on minimum daily capacities of around 12,000 pieces for individual orders. With the current configuration of Project Sunshine, Stylers is barely above that threshold on a stand-alone basis. By lifting Sunshine’s capacity to 20,000 pieces a day, the company aims to de-risk its order book and position itself to handle significant programmes for several large customers simultaneously.
In plain language, the company is betting that more capacity will earn it more logos on the customer slide. That should help dilute the bargaining power of its current anchor client and soften the blow if any single buyer scales back orders. The strategy matches the expectations of international rating agencies: PACRA notes that Stylers’ topline growth has been driven mainly by consistent volume expansion and that denim jeans remain the dominant product in its export mix.
Project Sunshine is also central to Stylers’ sustainability pitch. The campus is expected to secure a LEED Gold certification, with an up-
grade to LEED Platinum planned by 2028, and comes with investments in energy efficiency and greener utilities. The company has already installed a 2 MW solar project and converted its steam generation from fossil fuels to biomass across its manufacturing sites, tying in with a broader environmental, social and governance (ESG) framework that the US Group has been rolling out across its businesses.
For European brands in particular, such credentials are shifting from “nice-to-have” to “must-have” as new regulations and consumer pressure tighten. PACRA notes that Europe is Stylers’ prime export destination, with the company’s revenue growth driven by demand for value-added, sustainably produced garments even in a challenging global environment. Stylers’ capacity expansion therefore doubles as an ESG upgrade, making it easier to win new programmes from buyers that are screening suppliers for both scale and sustainability.
Stylers International’s story predates its relatively recent arrival on the stock exchange. The company was incorporated in Pakistan as a private limited company in November 1991, under the old Companies Ordinance, and was converted into a public limited company in May 2021. It finally listed on the Pakistan Stock Exchange on 22 January 2024, following a scheme of arrangement involving AEL Textiles Limited.
Stylers is not a stand-alone venture. It is a prominent business within the US Group, a Lahore-based textile and logistics conglomerate whose activities span Apparel, Fabric, New Ventures and Logistics. The group includes companies such as US Apparel & Textiles, US Denim, US Workwear and US Dyeing & Finishing, and PACRA estimates the group’s size at over $350 million. That backing gives Stylers access to shared expertise in fabric sourcing, design, sustainability and logistics, as well as a pool of experienced managers.
The company itself is engaged in manufacturing, marketing and exporting readymade garments, with a particular focus on denim and non-denim bottoms. It also offers textile processing services, effectively covering the full value chain from fabric to finished jeans and trousers.
Stylers operates in a crowded textile landscape. On the garment side, its peers include names such as Interloop, Sapphire Finishing Mills, Cotton Web and Artistic Fabric Mills, all of which target international buyers with vertically integrated operations. In denim in particular, Pakistan has carved out a niche as a competitive supplier to European brands, thanks to a combination of fabric expertise and relatively low labour costs.
Yet industry associations have spent much of the past two years issuing warnings.
The Pakistan Textile Council (PTC) and other lobbies have repeatedly criticised amendments to the Export Facilitation Scheme, arguing that changes such as SRO 1359 – which altered the treatment of certain raw materials – pose “a direct threat to the survival” of apparel exporters by increasing compliance burdens and disrupting supply chains. Separate statements have painted a dire picture of rising energy costs, claiming that Pakistan’s electricity tariffs are now among the highest in the world and that without cheaper power and restored incentives the country faces mass factory closures and job losses.
Stylers’ own management has echoed parts of this narrative. In its recent briefing, the company highlighted the “transition to normal tax regime”, the phasing-out of EFS benefits and high energy prices as key headwinds, and pointed out that Pakistan’s statutory minimum wage – about $130 a month – is higher than in Bangladesh, where it is closer to $100. That wage gap, the argument goes, dulls Pakistan’s competitiveness in labour-intensive stitching operations.
But a closer look suggests the picture is more nuanced than the lobbying language implies.
First, while energy costs are genuinely painful, the industry has benefited from years of tax breaks, subsidised tariffs and concessionary finance that many other sectors never enjoyed. The removal or reshaping of some of these schemes, including the EFS, is partly driven by the government’s need to broaden the tax base and comply with international lending programmes. The EFS still allows duty- and tax-free imports of approved raw materials; recent changes primarily seek to tighten oversight and limit misuse for domestic sales rather than exports.
Second, the minimum-wage comparison with Bangladesh can be misleading. A difference of roughly $30 a month is meaningful but far from decisive in an industry where automation, design capabilities, order sizes and compliance standards increasingly determine margins. Studies of the sector point instead to tariff barriers abroad – such as a combined 29% effective tariff on Pakistani textiles in the United States – and to domestic bottlenecks like poor infrastructure and flood-related damage to cotton crops as larger structural disadvantages. In that context, simply arguing for cheaper labour and energy risks ignoring the deeper productivity and market-access challenges the industry faces.
Third, companies like Stylers demonstrate that it is possible to grow despite these headwinds by moving up the value chain. PACRA’s reports show that, even as sector-wide exports have come under pressure – Pakistan’s textile exports in FY23 fell to about $16.5
billion, down 15% year-on-year – Stylers has expanded sales, added capacity and invested in ESG-compliant facilities, all while keeping leverage low. That does not mean policy has no role, but it does suggest that business strategy matters at least as much as tariff relief.
Stylers’ own strategy is a case in point. Rather than relying on generic incentives, it is investing in LEED-certified buildings, solar power and biomass-based steam generation, directly addressing the sustainability expectations of European brands and regulators. It is also attacking a micro-level risk that does not feature in industry position papers: customer concentration. A company that depends on one buyer for two-fifths of its revenue is exposed not just to energy prices and tax policies, but also to the strategic whims, inventory cycles and compliance audits of that client. Project Sunshine, by lifting capacity above the minimum thresholds that big brands demand, is explicitly designed to reduce this vulnerability.
None of this is to deny that policy mis-steps can cause real harm. Confusion around EFS implementation and unpredictable decisions on gas and power tariffs do weigh on planning. Exporters are right to push for greater clarity and consistency. But there is an element of special pleading in some of the sector’s public statements, which can reduce complex issues to a simple demand for cheaper inputs. For a company like Stylers, whose buyers are increasingly focused on traceability, carbon footprints and social compliance, the competitive battlefield is shifting from “who pays the lowest electricity bill” to “who can guarantee sustainable, reliable, large-scale production”.
That does not mean Stylers is insulated from risk. If global apparel demand slows further, or if major customers rationalise supplier lists, the company’s expanded capacity could become a burden rather than a blessing. Export orders can be notoriously fickle, and with a small free float, Stylers’ share price may remain volatile as investors weigh execution risks against long-term potential.
For now, though, the company is leaning into growth. FY25’s revenue surge, the still-healthy profit figures and the board’s willingness to keep dividends flowing suggest an organisation confident that its biggest investment cycle is yet to pay off. If Project Sunshine delivers on its promise – lifting capacity, attracting new blue-chip buyers and cementing Stylers’ sustainability credentials – then the company’s bet on “more capacity, more customers” may prove well-timed. If not, it will provide an instructive case study in how far operational excellence can carry a textile exporter when the policy environment remains contentious and global trade winds keep shifting. n
PTCL could become a $5 billion company, argues Chase Securities
The brokerage believes the acquisition of Telenor Pakistan will unlock significant consolidation value for the company and boost its market cap past a psychological barrier
Chase Securities, a Karachi-based brokerage, has put forward one of the boldest equity calls on the Pakistan Stock Exchange this year: Pakistan Telecommunication Company Ltd (PTCL) could realistically work its way back to an equity value of around $5.0 billion over the next three to five years – provided its acquisition of Telenor Pakistan is completed and integration is executed with discipline.
In its November 2025 report, titled “PTCL (PTC): From Price Wars to Pricing Power”, Chase initiates coverage with a twelve-month target price of Rs62 per share, implying about 58% upside from the Rs39.2 level at the time of publication and valuing the company at roughly Rs316 billion (just over $1.1 billion) on a one-year view. But the report’s central argument goes beyond that one-year price target: it contends that, as ARPU and margins normalise in a more consolidated market, PTCL’s equity could reasonably move back towards $5.0 billion, a level it last approached in the mid-2000s.
PTCL’s market capitalisation peaked close to $7.7 billion in 2005, followed by a long slide to about $0.7 billion today – only around 7% of the valuation implied when Etisalat bought its strategic stake in 2006. In that sense, Chase is arguing less that PTCL must discover a brand-new growth story, and more that it has a credible path to reclaim a portion of the equity value it has lost over the past two decades.
The core of the bullish thesis rests on three pillars:
1. A bargain-priced acquisition of Telenor Pakistan: PTCL has agreed to acquire 100% of Telenor Pakistan at an enterprise value of Rs108 billion on a cash-free, debt-free basis. Chase notes that this implies an EV/sales multiple of roughly 0.9 times, sharply below recent emerging-market telecom transactions, where EV/sales has typically ranged from 2.3 to 3.2 times. On an EV per subscriber basis, the report estimates that PTCL is effectively paying only about $9–10 per user, versus a peer range of roughly $40–270 per user in other Asia and Africa consolidations.
2. A much higher “normalised” earnings base once Telenor is added and one-offs are
stripped out: On its own, PTCL Group’s reported profitability in recent years has been clouded by large “other charges”, notably losses related to UBank. But Chase reconstructs a normalised picture by removing these one-offs and adding in Telenor Pakistan’s earnings. The pro-forma analysis suggests a current earnings run-rate of roughly Rs19–32 billion per year, equivalent to about Rs3.7–6.3 in earnings per share, even before most of the expected cost synergies from the merger have been realised.
Quarterly earnings could swing from losses to solid profits once non-core charges are excluded and Telenor’s contribution is added – with combined quarterly profit after tax in mid-2025 landing in the Rs6–8 billion range.
3. Room for ARPU and margins to “catch up” with global peers: Blended mobile ARPU in Pakistan is currently around $1.1 per month, compared with about $2–3 per month in markets such as India, Nigeria and Uganda. A chart on page 29 compares ARPU across global operators: PTCL (on a post-merger basis) sits at the bottom of the list, far below companies in Malawi, Ghana and the Philippines.
Chase’s base case assumes that Pakistani industry ARPU merely rises from about Rs280 per month in 2026 to roughly Rs480–525 by 2030 – still modest when compared in dollar terms to peer markets. Even on this conservative path, the brokerage forecasts EPS of Rs6.4 in 2026, Rs10.9 in 2027 and Rs15.1 in 2028, which would leave PTCL trading on mid-single-digit forward earnings multiples if the share price only reached the Rs62 level.
Against that backdrop, Chase suggests that a $5.0 billion equity valuation – which would imply a share price roughly three times its current level – is not outlandish if Pakistan’s telecom sector moves decisively into a more consolidated, higher-ARPU phase and PTCL captures its share of the resulting profitability.
The single most important building block of that thesis is the acquisition and merger of Telenor Pakistan into PTCL’s mobile arm, Ufone.
PTCL announced the deal in December 2023, signing a share purchase agreement to acquire Telenor’s Pakistani operations for Rs108 billion on a cash- and debt-free basis. Telenor
Pakistan brings a network serving around 40–45 million subscribers, with annual revenue in the region of Rs110–120 billion and an EBITDA margin of roughly 43%.
Based on Pakistan Telecommunication Authority data, as of October 2025 Jazz led the mobile market with about 37% share, followed by Zong on 27%, Telenor on 22% and Ufone on 14%. Combining Ufone and Telenor would therefore raise PTCL’s mobile share from 14% to around 36%, creating a challenger of almost comparable scale to Jazz, while pushing Zong into a clear third place.
The merger is not only about scale, however. Chase spends a substantial portion of the report detailing the operational efficiencies that can be realised if PTCL executes well:
• Tower and network rationalization: After the merger, the combined Ufone–Telenor network is expected to control about 24,000 towers nationwide. PTCL’s management believes that roughly 7,000 overlapping sites can be decommissioned over time, which the brokerage estimates could generate up to Rs21 billion per year in savings on rent, power, maintenance and backhaul.
• IT, billing and support convergence: Beyond physical sites, the report highlights opportunities to converge IT and BSS platforms, billing systems, customer care, call centres and retail distribution. These measures, although more complex to implement than simply switching off duplicate towers, can provide recurring savings in overheads and improve customer experience.
• Capex avoidance: By operating a single, more efficiently loaded network instead of two parallel ones, PTCL can avoid a portion of future capital expenditure on 4G densification and any eventual 5G deployment. A unified spectrum grid and rationalised vendor roadmaps should, in theory, lower the cost per delivered gigabyte.
Chase draws heavily on global precedents: the Bharti Airtel / Vodafone Idea consolidation in India, MTN’s market position in Ghana, and post-merger experiences in Brazil, Indonesia and Uganda. In each case, the pattern is similar: an initial phase of brutal competition and falling ARPU gives way, after consolidation, to gradual “tariff repair”, higher ARPU and improved EBITDA margins.
PTCL’s own recent margin trajectory is evidence that some of this repair has already begun. A table in the report summarising the group’s quarterly numbers for 2024–25 shows EBITDA margin rising from about 24% in mid2024 to just over 40% by the September 2025 quarter, while operating margin moves into the mid-teens. Much of this lift has come even before Telenor is formally folded in.
Chase’s base case, therefore, is not built on heroic assumptions of explosive subscriber growth. Instead, it assumes low single-digit growth in the combined mobile subscriber base, modest expansion in fixed-broadband revenue, and a multi-year lift in ARPU supported by sector consolidation, network integration and a more data-heavy usage mix.
If those assumptions hold, PTCL’s pro-forma earnings run-rate of Rs19–32 billion could compound further, and the group’s EBITDA margin could rise from the current about 40% towards the mid-40s over the next several years. In that scenario, the company would start to look more like the higher-margin emerging-market operators referenced in the report, rather than a structurally low-return outlier.
To understand why a return to “pricing power” is such a central theme in Chase’s analysis, it helps to recall how PTCL reached this point.
Pakistan’s telecommunication services were originally provided by the state-owned Pakistan Telecommunication Corporation. In 1995–96 the government restructured the entity under the Pakistan Telecommunication (Re-organisation) Act, transferring telecom operations into the newly created Pakistan Telecommunication Company Ltd, which was then listed on the stock exchange.
For many years PTCL enjoyed a near-monopoly over fixed telephony and long-distance and international traffic. That changed in the early 2000s, when the sector was liberalised and new licences were issued. Cellular subsidiaries were also created: PTCL launched Ufone as its mobile arm in 2001 and earlier operated PakNet in internet services.
The defining moment in PTCL’s corporate history came in 2005–06, when the government sold a 26% strategic stake – along with management control – to Etisalat of the UAE for $2.6 billion, implying an equity valuation of roughly $10 billion at the time. As the Chase report notes, PTCL’s earnings then were near their peak, with group profit after tax around $0.5 billion in 2004.
What followed was a long deterioration. As mobile penetration surged and new competitors – notably Telenor, Warid and China Mobile’s Zong – entered the market, price wars intensified and ARPU collapsed. PTCL’s legal monopoly over lucrative long-distance and international traffic effectively ended with the 2003–04 deregulation policy, which introduced
Long Distance and International (LDI) and Wireless Local Loop licences.
A chart on page 7 of the Chase report shows Pakistan’s ARPU sliding from roughly $6 per month in 2004 to below $1.1 by the mid-2020s, one of the lowest levels in the world. PTCL’s group margins and market value fell in tandem; by 2025, the company’s entire equity was worth about $0.7 billion, or roughly $10 per subscriber on a post-merger pro-forma basis.
Despite these pressures, PTCL has remained the country’s dominant fixed-line and wholesale operator. Its 2024 consolidated revenue of approximately Rs220 billion came from a diverse mix: about Rs81 billion from cellular and other wireless services, Rs49 billion from broadband and IPTV, Rs44 billion from corporate and wholesale, Rs25 billion from its subsidiary UBank, around Rs12 billion from international operations and nearly Rs9 billion from legacy fixed-line voice. A chart on page 4 shows this portfolio visually, with cellular now the single largest segment even before Telenor is added.
Post-merger, Chase estimates that around 60% of PTCL Group revenue will come from cellular services, with broadband / FTTH and corporate services forming most of the remainder. That shift underscores a broader strategic transition: from a fixed-line incumbent with a mobile adjunct to a converged group whose growth engine is mobile data and fibre broadband.
The PTCL of the late 2020s is therefore a very different company from the PTCL that Etisalat bought into. The question, as posed by Chase, is whether sector consolidation, ARPU repair and cost efficiencies can allow this reshaped group to generate returns commensurate with its strategic position.
Pakistan’s telecom sector is often described as crowded but concentrated. On the mobile side, the market has for years been dominated by four nationwide operators – Jazz, Zong, Telenor and Ufone – competing for a subscriber base that has now reached almost full penetration.
Recent estimates suggest that Pakistan has around 190–195 million mobile subscriptions, including more than 120 million 3G/4G users. As of mid-2025, Jazz led with roughly 37% market share, Zong followed with about 26%, Telenor held around 22% and Ufone about 14%, according to independent industry trackers and PTA data.
At the revenue level, consulting and research firms estimate the mobile operator market at around $2.4 billion in 2025, growing at a compound annual rate of just over 4% towards 2030 – modest by emerging-market standards, reflecting a maturing, price-sensitive market.
Fixed broadband is smaller but strategically important. PTCL remains the incumbent, with a large copper and fibre network, but faces competition from nimble fibre-to-the-home pro-
viders such as Nayatel, StormFiber and Cybernet’s Optix, which are building dense networks in upper-income urban neighbourhoods.
Taxes and regulatory levies loom large in operators’ complaints. Industry briefings routinely point out that telecom services are subject to multiple layers of taxation – including withholding tax on prepaid recharges, federal excise duty and provincial sales tax – which together can push the tax share of a prepaid user’s spend to nearly 30%. Operators argue that this both depresses usage and limits their ability to raise tariffs.
Chase does not dismiss these challenges; its risk section explicitly flags regulatory, tax and macroeconomic risks, including the possibility that the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority and the Competition Commission might restrict aggressive price rises after the PTCL–Telenor merger, or that high interest rates and currency depreciation could crimp returns.
But the brokerage also argues that market structure matters at least as much as taxation and macro headwinds. With four national mobile operators fighting over essentially saturated demand, the sector has behaved like a classic “Stage 1” telecom market – long on subscriber growth, short on pricing power. The PTCL–Telenor combination, coming after the earlier Mobilink–Warid merger that created Jazz, pushes Pakistan closer to a “three-player” structure in which each operator has the scale and spectrum depth needed to support sustainable tariffs.
Some analysts already describe the post-merger landscape as a “battle of giants”, with Jazz still ahead but faced for the first time with a single challenger approaching it in size, while Zong deploys Chinese capital and technology to defend its share. In that environment, sector-wide ARPU increases – whether through headline price hikes or via bundle re-design –become more feasible than in the era of five or six operators.
A distinctive feature of the Chase Securities report is the detailed global context it provides. Rather than treating Pakistan as an isolated case, the brokerage situates PTCL’s prospects within a three-stage telecom life cycle observed across multiple markets:
1. Stage 1 – Land grab and network build-out: Many markets, from the United States and Europe in the 1990s to Indonesia and Nigeria in earlier phases, pass through a stage characterised by too many operators, intensive price competition and heavy capital expenditure on towers and spectrum. ARPU often falls even as subscriber numbers soar. Pakistan, the report argues, spent much of the 2000s and early 2010s in precisely this mode, with six mobile operators at one point and pervasive multi-SIM behaviour among users.
2. Stage 2 – Consolidation and monetization: As weaker players exit or merge, sectors move from “4–5 operators” to “3 or fewer”, and
management focus shifts from subscriber acquisition to ARPU growth and cash generation. Case studies from India, Brazil, Ghana, Nigeria and Indonesia show that once consolidation takes hold, operators are able to push through tariff increases, rationalise discounting and gradually restore margins. Chase presents data that shows ARPU and EBITDA margins have risen in these markets after major mergers. Bharti Airtel’s EBITDA margin in India, for example, climbed from around 32% in 2019 to nearly 49% by 2025, while MTN Ghana’s margins moved into the mid-50s as it consolidated a dominant position.
3. Stage 3 – Mature, utility-like industry: In markets such as Canada or parts of Western Europe, telecoms now behave like regulated utilities: growth is low, but ARPU and cash flows are stable and high, and investors own the stocks primarily for yield.
Where does Pakistan sit on this curve?
Chase’s answer is that it is “between late Stage 1 and early Stage 2”. Penetration is high, but ARPU remains depressed and the sector is still dealing with the after-effects of years of under-pricing and macro stress. The PTCL/ Ufone–Telenor transaction is, in this framing, a deliberate attempt to shove the market more decisively into Stage 2, following the path India, Brazil, Nigeria and Ghana have already trodden.
The valuations table on pages 8–9 drives home how far PTCL still has to go. On a pro-forma basis, the company trades at roughly $10 per subscriber, compared with about $42–245 for comparable emerging-market operators and up to $600 or more in some developed markets. Even a partial closing of that valuation gap, as ARPU and margins rise, would translate into significant upside for the stock.
Chase is careful to emphasise the risks: regulatory intervention, slower-than-expected
synergy capture, further macro shocks and the ever-present possibility that price competition reignites despite consolidation. But the underlying message of the report is clear. After two decades in which PTCL moved “from price wars to value destruction”, a more consolidated sector structure, the bargain-priced acquisition of Telenor Pakistan and a measured recovery in ARPU could allow it to move “from price wars to pricing power”.
Whether that journey is enough to justify a $5.0 billion valuation is ultimately for the market to decide. For now, Chase Securities has laid out one of the more detailed roadmaps for how a once-dominant, now-undervalued national incumbent could claw back a chunk of the value it has lost – and in doing so, finally break out of the psychological ceiling imposed by years of single-digit dollar ARPU and sub-billion-dollar market capitalisation. n
Askari Life swings back to profitability on the back of premium growth
During the first nine months of the year, premiums have nearly doubled, allowing the company to become profitable again
Askari Life Assurance Company Ltd has quietly engineered one of the more striking turnarounds on the Pakistan Stock Exchange this year. After several years of losses, the life insurer has swung back into profit on the back of strong premium growth and a much healthier insurance margin.
According to a recent corporate briefing, Askari Life posted earnings per share of roughly Rs0.3 for the first nine months of calendar 2025, compared with a loss of about Rs0.4 per share in the same period of 2024. In the third quarter alone, EPS came in at around Rs0.1, reversing a similar-sized loss a year earlier.
The improvement is driven above all by a sharp rise in premium income. Premium revenue for the first nine months of 2025 climbed to about Rs2.2 billion, up from roughly Rs1.3 billion a year earlier – an increase of 75%. Net premium revenue, after taking account of ceded reinsurance, nearly doubled from just under Rs1.0 billion to close to Rs1.9 billion, reflecting both higher new business and better retention of risk. The company’s net premium revenue growth outpaced the rise in premiums given to reinsurers, which only increased by about 12% over the same period.
Total income – the sum of net premium
revenue and investment and other income – rose to around Rs2.1 billion in the first nine months of 2025, up about 70% year-on-year. Interestingly, investment and other income actually declined by about 13%, as pure investment income was lower, even though the company booked larger fair-value gains on its financial assets. In other words, it was core insurance activity rather than market returns that delivered the turnaround.
On the cost side, net insurance benefits and changes in insurance liabilities rose in line with the expanding book, but remained manageable. Net insurance benefits increased from about Rs204 million to approximately Rs327 million, while the net change in insurance liabilities more than doubled from around Rs278 million to Rs612 million. Acquisition expenses – largely commissions and related selling costs – climbed more than 50% to roughly Rs806 million, reflecting the push for new business. Marketing and administration expenses were up a more modest 12%, to around Rs323 million.
Even with these increases, the insurer’s results from operating activities swung from a loss of about Rs61 million in the first nine months of 2024 to a profit of roughly Rs40 million in the same period of 2025. After tax, the company recorded a profit of around Rs38 million, compared with a loss of about Rs65 million
a year earlier. The third quarter tells a similar story in miniature: premium revenue up nearly 70%, net premium almost doubling, and a small loss at operating level turning into a profit.
The latest year-to-date performance builds on a tentative return to profitability in 2024. Pakistan Stock Exchange data show that Askari Life posted profit after tax of roughly Rs15 million for the full year 2024, following sizeable losses in 2021–2023, with earnings of about Rs0.1 per share. That modest profit, achieved in a difficult macroeconomic environment, appears to have laid the groundwork for the more substantial improvement seen in 2025.
Investors have taken note. PSX figures indicate that Askari Life’s share price has traded recently around Rs11.9 per share, with a one-year gain of about 137.4% and a trailing price-earnings multiple near 15 times. The stock’s 52-week range, from just over Rs3.2 to about Rs19.5, underlines how volatile sentiment has been as investors reassess the insurer’s prospects in light of its new profitability.
Behind the numbers, the company is gradually building a larger balance sheet. The Chase briefing notes that the fund managed on behalf of policyholders is now close to Rs3.0 billion, while the investment portfolio stands at around Rs2.3 billion, giving the insurer a growing base of assets to manage on behalf of its clients. With
premium revenue now rising strongly and operating activities back in profit, Askari Life enters the next phase of its growth strategy from a more solid footing.
Askari Life’s product suite spans both conventional life insurance and sharia-compliant family takaful, giving it access to a wide range of customer segments. The company’s policyholder funds are split accordingly into statutory funds for ordinary life, universal life, and accident and health business, alongside funds for its window family takaful operations.
On the conventional side, the company’s most popular offerings are child education plans, marketed as long-term savings vehicles that help parents fund future school and university costs. The corporate briefing describes these as the best-selling line in the portfolio. Askari Life also sells retirement planning products that function as pension-like schemes, offering policyholders an income stream in later life, as well as family protection policies and riders that cover death, disability and critical illness.
The firm has carved out a modest niche with specialised products for the armed forces and higher-net-worth customers. A flagship in this category is the “Mahfooz Saving Plan”, which is specifically designed for members of the armed forces and sold directly in cantonment areas. According to the briefing, Askari Life is currently the only life insurer allowed to market directly inside cantonments, a privilege likely linked to its ownership by the Army Welfare Trust. Despite this unique channel, management emphasises that the majority of business – around 90–95% – still comes from the open market, with the armed forces portfolio accounting for roughly 5–7% of premiums.
On the takaful side, the product menu includes a range of family savings and protection plans under brands such as Golden Path, PurSukoon Kal, Sarbuland, Humrahi, Iqra and Kanz-ul-Askari. These are offered either through individual family takaful or through bancatakaful tie-ups with Islamic banks, most notably Al Baraka Bank. This allows Askari Life to serve customers who prefer Shariah-compliant solutions, a segment that has been growing across the industry.
Distribution is currently dominated by two channels: an agency network and bancassurance. The Chase briefing notes that agency operations are spread over around 80 locations across Pakistan, covering cities and towns and enabling door-to-door retail sales. This traditional, face-to-face model remains the backbone of life insurance distribution in a country where financial literacy is low and products are complex.
Bancassurance – and its Islamic counterpart, bancatakaful – is the second key pillar. Askari Life has active arrangements with Al Baraka Bank, and a new partnership with
U-Bank is in the process of being rolled out. The company’s website also highlights product link-ups with Askari Bank, Silkbank and Samba Bank, indicating a strategy of plugging into multiple retail and branch networks to widen its reach.
Looking ahead, management signalled a push into fully digital products that can be purchased online without any human interaction, in line with guidelines issued by the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP). While digitalisation across Pakistan’s insurance sector remains at an early stage – a recent industry report notes that most players have focused mainly on using digital channels for distribution rather than end-to-end automation – regulators and insurers alike see online sales as crucial to broadening penetration.
Askari Life’s investment strategy is broadly conservative. The briefing states that the primary investment focus is on government securities, which are used to back policyholder liabilities and secure savings. Smaller slices of the portfolio are invested in mutual funds, while the company has recently started taking equity exposure through three specially managed accounts. Given the volatility of Pakistan’s equity markets and the importance of capital preservation for life policies, the emphasis on government paper is hardly surprising.
As the policyholder fund grows, the challenge will be to maintain this careful balance between safety and return, particularly once the SECP’s planned move to IFRS 17 in 2026 forces life insurers to present more granular and market-consistent valuations of their long-term liabilities. For now, though, the combination of strong premium growth, a multi-channel distribution footprint and a more active – if still cautious – investment stance suggests that Askari Life is positioning itself for steady, rather than spectacular, expansion.
Askari Life is not a newcomer to Pakistan’s insurance landscape, even if its recent results have only just brought it back onto investors’ radar. The company was incorporated on 18 August 1992 as a public limited company and commenced life insurance operations in early 1993, after securing registration from the then Controller of Insurance. Its shares are quoted on the Pakistan Stock Exchange under the symbol ALAC.
A turning point came in October 2017, when the Army Welfare Trust acquired majority control, taking its shareholding to around 66.7%. AWT is a diversified conglomerate with interests ranging from banking and cement to agriculture and consumer goods. Its backing gives Askari Life access to a potentially valuable ecosystem – including cross-selling opportunities with Askari Bank and other AWT-linked entities – as well as reputational support in a market where trust is crucial.
Askari Life’s core business spans ordinary
life, universal life and accident and health coverage, together with window family takaful operations. In line with regulatory requirements, the company maintains separate statutory funds for each business line and a distinct shareholder fund.
The last decade has not always been kind to the insurer. Financial statements from earlier years show repeated losses and accumulated deficits in shareholders’ equity, necessitating periodic injections of capital, including advance equity contributions from the parent. Only in 2024 did Askari Life manage to report a small annual profit after tax, and even then the margin was slim. Against that backdrop, the 2025 nine-month figures represent not just a cyclical upswing but a potential structural shift towards a more viable scale.
The insurer has also launched alliances such as Mediq Smart Healthcare, which offers policyholders access to medical services, hinting at a broader push to bundle value-added features with its policies.
For now, Askari Life remains a small player in an industry dominated by giants. But with a stabilised capital structure, improved profitability and the backing of a large parent, it is better placed than at any point in the past decade to grow its franchise.
Askari Life’s recent progress must be viewed in the context of a life insurance sector that is growing but still heavily concentrated and under-penetrated.
Recent statistics released by the SECP show that the life insurance segment accounts for about 64% of the industry’s gross premiums, with the non-life sector making up the remaining 36%. In 2023, the overall insurance industry wrote gross premiums of around Rs631 billion, up about 14% from 2022, while total industry assets grew from roughly Rs2.4 trillion to Rs2.9 trillion. Life insurers paid claims of approximately Rs289 billion in 2023, underscoring the sector’s role as a shock-absorber for households.
Yet penetration remains low. A recent overview in The News points out that only about 5% of Pakistan’s population is covered by life insurance policies and that, despite a compound annual growth rate of around 10% over the past five years, the broader “financial and insurance” segment contributes less than 2% of GDP. In a country of more than 240 million people, that leaves a vast pool of potential customers untapped.
Market structure is equally skewed. An industry report by consultancy SHMA notes that Pakistan’s insurance sector is highly concentrated, with a handful of players – including State Life Insurance Corporation (SLIC), EFU Life, Jubilee Life and Adamjee – controlling more than 60% of overall market share. Many smaller insurers struggle with limited capital, thin distribution networks and the cost of meeting tightening regulatory standards.
Dr. Irfan Ahmad OPINION
Promoting Made in Pakistan
The latest July-Oct 2025-26 trade numbers show that our Current Account Deficit has surged by 255% YoY. Imports have multiplied. Exports have not increased. It is time to round up the usual suspects! We have to form committees to help increase our exports. Here is what will happen: A few monetary incentives will be given, a devaluation will be suggested and we will expect a miracle to happen. It doesn’t.
Let’s try a different approach.
The Bangladesh LDC Graduation Example
The UN declared that in Nov 2026, Bangladesh would graduate from its Least Developed Countries (LDC) status. Losing LDC status meant exports would no longer benefit from GSP+ and tariff incentives. Its Unique Selling Proposition of “lowest cost” producer would no longer be valid. It had to develop a new strategy.
In 2023 Bangladesh started advertising on CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera TV, Nikkei-CNBC, Bloomberg and TIME magazine promoting its SDG compliant garments, its high-tech manufacturing (Samsung was making state of the art 85” TVs there), its US FDA approved pharma companies, … promoting a dynamic new image.
During a meeting in Dhaka with a visiting media delegation, the person responsible for the transformative branding of Bangladesh was complimented on the initiative but was informed that these changes take time. Surprisingly, he agreed and said “We are in it for the long run.” It is rare that bureaucrats in countries that are attempting to increase tourism, trade and investment by running international media promotion campaigns do not look for immediate returns. Branding doesn’t deliver
Dr. Irfan Ahmad has a PhD in Export Marketing from Boston University. X: @irfanahmad
overnight success.
Bangladesh was different. They were in it for the long haul. They wanted to change the world’s perception about Bangladesh. Unfortunately, after the July 2024 Monsoon Uprising, the country went to a reset. And everything stopped.
Country Branding
Acountry’s brand reflects on its exports. It also affects FDI. Perceptions of quality, reliability and value are associated with a good country brand. And consumers are willing to pay a premium for it. If you have a good story to tell, you can change perceptions about a country.
The classic example is the country branding done by Colombia around its coffee. Plagued by an image of a drug infested nation, the country launched a campaign in 1960 promoting a fictional ambassador, Juan Valdez, a coffee farmer with bags of coffee beans straddling his donkey, Conchita, descending the rugged Andes mountains. By putting a face behind the story of a coffee farmer, the campaign was able to make consumers appreciate the effort that goes into brewing a cup of coffee. Later, this wholesome image evolved to became a symbol of Colombia’s adherence to what is known as the UN Sustainable Development Goal - fair trade practices, ethical sourcing and adequate compensation to farmers. And yes, 100% pure Colombian Arabica coffee now commands a premium price at cafes around the world. Branding works!
Pakistan’s Branding Opportunity: FIFA World Cup 2026
Footballs from Sialkot meet the exacting standards set by the FIFA World Cup Committee. Starting in June 2026, Pakistani footballs will be used to play matches that will be seen by an estimated audience of over five billion people. And the balls will bear the “Made in Pakistan” label. This is Pakistan’s branding opportunity.
It is time to change the perception of Made in Pakistan. If the country can be trusted to supply footballs that will be seen by 5 billion people, Pakistan is a country that stands for quality, reliability and value. But does the world know that these balls will be exported from Pakistan?
A country branding exercise around the FIFA World Cup will not only increase Pakistan’s sports goods exports, it will reflect on the country’s entire export portfolio. If crafted properly, an international media campaign built on the Made in Pakistan footballs can enhance our exports of textiles and clothing, foodstuff, IT and tech services and everything in between. It is time to tell the world that Pakistan can be trusted. And when importers learn to trust, they will send enquiries. FDI and joint ventures will follow. Pakistan’s exports will be perceived in a different light. The country’s military technological prowess has won it world attention. Footballs can be the next game changer! n
Why is Pakistan buying Canadian Canola?
By
buying Canola from Canada, Pakistan is trying to strike a delicate balance in the emerging global trade landscape
By Usama Liaqat
At the beginning of this month, Pakistan and Canada’s foreign ministers issued a joint statement. In diplomatic circles, such statements are laboured over. Ministry bureaucrats spend days poring over the implications of each word before the two sides come to an agreement.
Joint statements can range everywhere from defence pacts to alliances and smaller cultural agreements. The joint statement issued by Pakistan’a Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Ishaq Dar, and Canada’s Foreing Minister, Anita Anand, had to do with something rather interesting: canola.
The ministers announced they had reached an agreement to “facilitate the export of Canadian canola to Pakistan”. It was an effort, they said, to improve bilateral ties.
Normally, such agreements are made between commerce ministries in the form of MoUs. The joint statement, however, indicates canola is a serious issue for the Canadian government. Why? Because Canada needs buyers for its Canola seeds. It is one of Canada’s biggest agricultural products, and traditionally their biggest buyer has been China. But even as
China has engaged in a fierce trade war with the USA, a lesser known battle had been going on between Beijing and the Great White North.
China has imposed massive tariffs on Canadian agricultural products in retaliation for Canada imposing tariffs on Chinese Electronic Vehicles. In the absence of the Chinese market, Canada is turning to try and find many smaller markets where their farmers can sell their canola. One of these markets is Pakistan.
But Pakistan is not just an emerging market for Canada. In recent times, a very similar story has played out between Pakistan and the United States over American soybeans. Pakistan, it seems, is becoming a buyer for North America as it engages in a prolonged trade war with China.
In late 2022, Pakistan had, as part of a broader ban on importing genetically modified oilseeds, restricted canola imports from Canada. This recent meeting was an effort to reverse this ban, and open again the Pakistan market to Canadian canola.
But why did this restriction come about in the first place, why was it removed, and what are the implications of this recent move by both the governments? In order to understand this, we have to look at what canola is, and understand the broader developments in the oilseed landscape of Pakistan.
What is canola anyway?
Ambling through the aisles of your neighbourhood supermarket, you might have remarked on the confusing number of oils in the cooking section: cooking oil, palm oil, corn oil, olive oil, sunflower oil, canola oil, and so on. If you aren’t well-versed in the intricacies of the culinary universe, you just might pick the wrong one to the endless ridicule of the fastidious gods of gastronomy.
Most of these oils are formed by pressing oilseeds, and extracting oil from them. This oil is then refined, modified, and packaged for consumption, mostly for cooking purposes. The rest of the seed, i.e., the residue, is usually converted into a protein-rich feed - called meal - for poultry, livestock, dairy herds, and fish. Now canola was developed in Canada in the 1970s from a variety of rapeseed, belonging to the same family as mustard. Rapeseed, in its natural form, however, contained high amounts of erucic acid. Scientists at the University of Manitoba bred a new form of rapeseed, which contained lower amounts of this acid, and therefore was much healthier for human consumption. And, this came to be called canola – an acronym for “CANadian Oil,
Low Acid”.
Renowned for its healthy properties, canola has the lowest amount of saturated fat of all common culinary oils. At the same time, it has a light texture, a neutral taste, and a high smoking point, all of which make it ideal for cooking purposes. The effect was that canola rapidly rose to become the third most consumed vegetable oil globally.
And Canada became one of the world’s largest producers of canola, producing over 30% of the world’s total output, and accounting for around 60% of the global canola trade.
Pakistan’s Oilseed Landscape
Pakistan has an already large yet growing population. Consumer demand for cooking oil doesn’t stop rising, and the amount of various types of oils imported in turn also continues to increase. According to a report by the United States Department of Agriculture (Foreign Agricultural Service), the total oilseed consumption in Pakistan is forecast to rise to 5.68 million tonnes in 2025/26, a 14% increase from the estimated use in 2024/25.
Although Pakistan does produce some of what’s needed, it relies mainly on imports for what is consumed. According to the same USDA report, the total oilseed imports for 2025/26 are estimated to reach 2.65 million tons, a 20% increase compared to 2024/25.
The biggest category in this import category is palm oil. In FY 2024-25, Pakistan imported a record-breaking 3.213 million tonnes worth $3.4 billion in FY25, mostly from Indonesia and Malaysia. This made Pakistan the fourth largest importer of palm oil globally, trailing India, China, and the EU.
Source: Edible Oil Report by VIS Credit Rating Company Limited
Most of this palm oil is then used to produce Vanaspati ghee, a local, cheaper variant of the desi ghee which was made from clarified cow milk. This Vanaspati variety was discovered by European scientists, who had found a way to hydrogenate vegetable oil, and then convert it into a substance that effectively mimicked the taste and texture of ghee. Launched in India under the brand name Dalda, due to its ghee-like properties at only a fraction of the cost, it became the most popular cooking oil used in Pakistan.
Second largest is the category of soybeans. In FY 2024-25, soybean imports reached a record high of 321,107 tonnes worth $344 million in FY25, sourced majorly from Ukraine and the US.
Soybean contains the highest protein content of all oilseeds. It is also very rich in nutrition, and offers better digestibility. These factors prime it to be one of the top feed ingredients for poultry, especially in comparison to cottonseed, which has been the traditional component of chicken feed in Pakistan. With the demand for poultry going up - given that it is the biggest source of protein in an average Pakistani diet - the demand for soy seeds as feed to rear those chickens also continues to rise.
An important consideration here is that, like for palm oil, local production of soybean is negligible. In spite of multiple programs and government efforts to improve production, farmers have never really shown interest in growing these crops. As a consequence, palm and soybean oilseeds together comprise over 90% of Pakistan’s total oilseeds imports.
Canola or rapeseed is the third largest oilseed import for Pakistan, with USD 595 million worth of these oilseeds being imported in 2025, sourced almost exclusively from Aus-
tralia. Canola, which is essentially a genetically modified version of the rapeseed, is usually used to produce edible oil, the advantages of which we have already seen above. The residue from the seed is used to produce livestock, poultry, and aquaculture feed.
But, why does Pakistan feel the need to import such massive quantities of what is admittedly a staple of local nutrition?
The answer is simple, we don’t produce enough of it to keep up with the national demand. Not only is Pakistan’s per capita oil consumption comparatively high, according to a report by VIS Credit Rating Company, while Pakistan consumed around 4.8 million metric tonnes (MMT) in Trading Year 2024, only 1.1 MMT of it was produced domestically.
Pakistan’s domestic production is dominated by cottonseed, which accounted for about 76% of the total produce in 2024/25. Most of it is ground into cake to serve as feed for dairy cattle. Rapeseed was a distant second coming in at 19%, and sunflower seed was distant yet at 3%. Both the latter are used primarily for their oil, unlike cottonseed which is produced for its fibre. If we exclude cotton, the total area under oilseed cultivation is only around 3% of Pakistan’s 24.1 million hectares of total crop area.
Yet, if we look at the import data, we will be able to see an interesting thing regarding two oilseeds in particular: canola and soybean. In 2022, the imported value of rapeseed/canola fell to USD 140 million from around USD 496 million the previous year. And for soybeans, in 2023, the import value fell to a mere USD 375 million from over a billion dollars in 2022.
In a country so reliant upon imports for these two oilseeds, why did the import figures for these two oilseeds fall in such a short span of time?
The GMO Scare
In late 2022, the government awoke from one of its many simultaneous slumbers. What happened was that the customs department in Karachi refused to release two shipments containing soybeans. Although the importers, manufacturers, and poultry businesses clanged their vociferous protests, the government refused to budge.
The reason was succinctly summed up in a statement by Tariq Bashir Cheema, the then Federal Minister for National Food Security and Research, who peremptorily declared: “GMO soyabean causes cancer and we will not allow its import”.
The threadbare basis for this dubious claim aside, the importers started to panic. The two shipments contained genetically modified (GM) soybean seeds worth around USD 100 million. And soon, more shipments, including some of GM canola seeds, joined the stuck company. The value of the frozen oilseeds rose to around USD 300 million.
The government’s decision was based on its ratification in 2009 of the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety to the Convention on Biological Diversity. The Cartagena Protocol is a treaty governing the transfer across geographies of living modified organisms (LMOs) that have been altered through modern biotechnology. The principle behind this seems a sound one: sometimes, the introduction of a new species into an ecosystem might wreak havoc on its existing inhabitants, and lead to undesirable consequences that might threaten its very survival. And therefore, the Cartagena Protocol was conceived as a framework to monitor introduction of LMOs in a new geography.
The government had suddenly woken up.
Its reasoning was that based on the Pakistan Biosafety Rules of 2005, any import of new GMO varieties should be approved first by the Ministry of Climate Change. It alleged that the importers had not revealed in their application for an import permit that soybeans seeds sourced from the US are genetically modified, and nor had they provided a license from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) declaring that these were shipments of GM oilseeds. The government however had not been applying these rules prior to the confiscation of these shipments. And importers had been importing GM oilseeds and getting away with it. In fact, Pakistan had been importing GM soybeans from the US for the previous eight years, and the volume of the trade had reached USD 1.5 billion. Similarly, approximately one million tonnes of canola oilseeds were being imported every year mainly from Canada and Australia.
However, these GM seeds were not being imported to be sown, and therefore
the Cartagena Protocol didn’t really apply in this case. And, as far as the case of GMOs being introduced in the local food chain was concerned, that had already taken place. After all, GM seeds had been part of the livestock and poultry diet since 2005 in the form of GM cotton seeds.
Whatever the merits of the government’s decision, it was made, which in turn made life more difficult for everyone.
This was effectively a ban on the import of GM oilseeds. Due to the lack of enough affordable and high-protein soybean diet for the chickens, the poultry industry took a beating. Poultry production dropped almost by half, and feed producers scrambled to replace GM soy with its costly non-GM alternatives.
This shift was also reflected in import data. While Pakistan had imported GM soybean worth USD 373 million in 2021/22 from the US, in 2022/23, this figure fell to a round zero, as importers looked to import non-GM soybean from a variety of countries like Nige-
Source: Edible Oil Report by VIS Credit Rating Company Limited
ria, Benin, Togo, and so on.
Similar was the case for canola. While Pakistan had imported around 267 million metric tonnes of GM canola from Canada in 2022, in 2023, this figure too fell to a grand total of zero. Australia, which had been supplying non-GM rapeseed, was relied on to supply the shortfall.
Global Trade Wars and GM Oilseeds Imports
Auseful framework to understand the Pakistan-Canada trade developments regarding canola is to look at what happened between Pakistan and the US for soybean.
We have already seen how the banning of the import of GM soybean had effectively removed Pakistan from the US soybean export ecosystem. But, in December 2024, the National Biosafety Committee (NBC) and the EPA started to allow the import of GM soybean into Pakistan.
This was due to a robust campaign of lobbying from the local poultry industry, which stood to gain from cheaper GM soybean seeds. At the same time, advocacy from soybean exporters based in the US and the US embassy in Islamabad also contributed to this eventual outcome.
In 2025, with the tariff tennis being played by the US and China, and the trade hostilities between both these countries, the export of soybean has gained even more import for the US. China traditionally has been the biggest importer of US soybean, buying up almost half of the USD 24.5 billion worth of soy products from the US. These orders have fallen almost by half since the tariffs went into effect.
In a meeting in May this year, between the US Charge d’Affaires in Pakistan, Natalie A. Baker, and the Commerce Minister, Jam Kamal Khan, the resumption of US GM soybeans exports to Pakistan was emphasised as a key part of the growing partnership between the two countries. After all, since the imposition of tariffs on China, the US had been looking for other markets for its soybean production.
And, since then, Pakistan has been importing GM soybean from the US, with predictions that the total amount would reach around 1.1 million metric tonnes this year, a significant increase from the pre-ban figures.
Yet, although this is an obvious stain of Pakistan’s dollar reserves, it also presents an opportunity. Given the surprising warmth from the Trump administration towards Pakistan, this increase in soybean trade could further bolster Pakistan’s position in Washington, and help pave way for more favourable trade terms. At the same time, as we have seen,
with cheaper GM soybean, the costs for local production of poultry feed in Pakistan will fall, if used correctly, which could drive down the price of chicken, fish, and even meat.
In light of this development, let us look again at the recent agreement between Pakistan and Canada. With a blanket ban on GM oilseeds, Pakistan had effectively stopped importing canola from Canada, and had begun to rely more on Australia to supply non-GM rapeseed. And in the December 2024 move, the government had only authorized applications for import licenses for GE soybeans. The status of GM canola was still unclear.
Canada, too, like the US, has been trading blows with China over tariffs. In October 2024, Canada imposed a 100% tariff on Chinese-made EVs, and followed it up with a 25% tariff on imports of steel and aluminum products from China. In response, in March earlier this year, China slapped 100% tariffs on Canadian canola oil, canola meal and peas, as well as 25% tariffs on certain pork, fish and seafood products from Canada.
Canada, therefore, is in a similar situation as the US. Now that its trade with China is facing steep barriers, it too needs to find newer markets for its canola. And, a key opportunity is the canola trade which had come to a standstill following Pakistan’s ban on the import of GM oilseeds.
It is in this context that the recent agreement between the governments of Pakistan and Canada must be understood. Now, it is governments which have vowed to facilitate this trade, whereas earlier it was mostly handled by private importers. This represents a serious effort to restore the import of canola in Pakistan. Again, like with the US, this trade war presents a strategic opportunity for Pakistan to further entrench its position as a trading partner with western economies.
In fact, the joint statement made this explicitly clear. This was only the first round of negotiations towards a Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement. The statement emphasised: “Both sides also expressed keen interest in expanding bilateral cooperation on energy security and critical minerals, recognising the strong and growing role of Canadian companies in achieving Pakistan’s ambitious mineral development goals and harnessing its clean energy potential.” This was to be conceived in a broader commitment to “working together to promote peace, prosperity, and inclusive growth, both bilaterally and on the global stage”.
The Implications
We can see how this trade war, if negotiated well by Pakistan, might help improve its standing in
the global world of trade by enabling it to leverage its status as an importer to push for more favourable terms. The problem still remains the massive import bill these would rack up, and the heavy trade deficit Pakistan finds itself in, and which shows little sign of reducing.
Reliance on massive imports, that aren’t slowing anytime soon, would not do much to alleviate the problem in the long term. Given how strong and big the market in Pakistan is for such oilseeds, it would make sense to also invest in local production to ease some of this import pressure.
And some steps have, indeed, been taken by the government to help support local rapeseed production. In 2024, the government removed support pricing for wheat, encouraging farmers to look for alternative crops to plant. Rapeseed is generally considered a low input, and less risky crop, and the production, according to a US Department of Agriculture report, is projected to reach 565,000 tons, a 10 percent increase over output in 2024/25. This shift from wheat is the main motivator behind this change.
Yet at the same time, any efforts to bolster the local production of these crops would have to be balanced against the need to be in the good books of the US and Canada. It stands to reason that, since they are on course to export so much oilseed to Pakistan, they would not look too favourably on the cultivation of self-sufficiency on its part.
In any case, it still remains to be seen whether local production of rapeseed can in fact reach levels high enough to merit such fears. This would obviously also involve sustained and well-directed efforts by the government, as well as scientific interventions to improve yields and develop locally-adaptable varieties.
And as far as soybean is concerned, the absence of suitable climate- and pest-resistance varieties of soybean, as well as the lack of technical infrastructure and sustained coherent government policy are factors that need to be tackled in order to allow some sort of local production capacity to take hold.
In all this, the need to change attitudes towards GMOs also appears to be of paramount importance. As often happens, once things start to make financial sense, attitudes towards it also shift. Even the recent reversal over ban was done despite misgivings about the viability of GMOs in the food chain. And it is the government that has to take charge in this situation. It has to help create an ecosystem that allows the local oilseed economy to thrive and be sustainable in the long term, while still trying to balance short term needs that cannot be fulfilled without imports. n
CCP cracks down on 5 Gynea hospitals that required babies to be enrolled in group-owned kindergarten and then schools
By Profit
In a move applauded by consumer watchdogs but criticised by the private healthcare and education sectors, the Competition Commission of Pakistan (CCP) on Tuesday fined five gynecology hospitals after uncovering a “vertical integration scheme” that required newborn babies to be immediately enrolled in the hospital group’s kindergarten — with contractual obligations to continue to its primary and secondary schools.
According to the inquiry report, parents signing admission forms for delivery wards were simultaneously required to sign a separate “Education Pathway Application,” committing their child to an uninterrupted 18-year relationship with the company’s “Baby-to-Boardroom™ Educational Pipeline.”
The hospitals’ management insisted that this was “not coercion” but “customer lifetime value optimization.”
“We are not forcing anything,” argued Dr. Mobeen Usmani, CEO of MothersFirst Healthcare Group. “We are merely positioning our infants to unlock long-term synergies and productivity outcomes in a globalizing world.” Parents who chose to opt out were reportedly told that the hospital could not “guarantee the child’s cognitive development” without access to the group’s “Early-Stage Corporate Citizenship Curriculum.”
In one case cited by the CCP, a premature baby was placed on a ventilator only after a guardian digitally signed an addendum for “future SAT prep services.”
MothersFirst Healthcare Group had also introduced a “Performance Ranking System” for toddlers, offering “merit-based
discounts” on C-sections if parents prepaid for Grade 8 board exam coaching.
Industry insiders say this business model reflects a growing trend toward education–healthcare convergence, where companies seek to monetize “customer potential” from the moment of birth.
“Hospitals can’t survive on medical revenue alone anymore,” said one Karachi-based analyst. “The real money is in extended childhood monetization.”
The CCP has ordered all five hospitals to discontinue bundled education plans, cancel outstanding promissory notes for school tuition, and return confiscated security cheques taken “as commitment to long-term learning.”
However, hospital owners have warned that such regulatory interference risks “discouraging foreign investment in the neonatal development sector.”
