Pakistani-American Makes History as First Non-white NFL Owner
NFL owners are the oldest and whitest of old white guy clubs. Drew Magary
Pakistani-American Shahid Khan made history this week by becoming the first minority owner of a National Football League team. All 31 other owners of NFL teams are white. The deal to purchase Jacksonville Jaguar is for an estimated $760 million and the ownership transfer will be complete Jan. 4, 2012, according to Associated Press. Earlier, Khan agreed in February 2010 to buy a controlling interest in the St. Louis Rams before billionaire Stan Kroenke exercised an option to purchase the 60 percent of the club he didn’t own.
NFL has highly lucrative business because of the extraordinary popularity of football in the United States. Over nine years, starting in 2014, CBS, Fox and NBC will together will pay an average of about $3 billion a year, more than 50 percent higher than their current deals, according to a report in New York Times. Altogether, the four networks, in addition to DirecTV, which pays $1 billion a year for its Sunday Ticket satellite package, will pay the N.F.L. more annually in TV rights than any sports league has ever been paid.
Shahid Khan, a mechanical engineering graduate of University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, made his fortune in the auto business. Almost two-thirds of all North American-built pick- up trucks and sports utility vehicles have bumper systems based on Khan’s designs, according to figures released by the Jaguars. Khan bought Flex-N-Gate in 1980 and the company now has more than 10,000 employees at 48 manufacturing plants with annual sales exceeding $3 billion.
Shahid Khan joins the illustrious list of Pakistani-Americans that includes Shering-Plough CEO Fred Hassan, Edible Arrangements Founder & CEO Tariq Farid, former CEO of Healthnet Dr. Malik Hasan, global hedge fund manager Mansoor Ijaz, Founder and Former CEO of AST Research Safi Qureshi, Mayor Haroon Saleem of of Granite Falls, Washington, Hilary Clinton aide Huma Abedin Weiner, novelists Bapsi Sidhwa and Daniyal Mueenuddin, Emmy nominee singer-songwriter Nadia Ali, and many other prominent Pakistani-American business executives, entrepreneurs, public servants, politicians and performers who have made their name in their adopted country.
Although Pakistani-Americans are still a miniscule fraction of the overall US population, their numbers have more than doubled in the last decade due to increased immigration, according to US Census 2010 data. With 100% increase since 2000, Pakistanis are the second fastest growing Asian immigrant group in the United States.
Here are some of the highlights of Pakistani-American data from US Census 2010 as gleaned from a report titled "A Community of Contrasts Asian Americans in the United States: 2011" published by Asian-American Center For Advancing Justice:
1. There are 409,163 Pakistani-Americans in 2010, the 7th largest Asian-American community in America.
2. Pakistani-American population doubled from 2000 (204,309) to 2010 (409,163), the second largest percentage increase after Bangladeshis' 157% increase in the same period.
3. 6% of Pakistani-American population is mixed race.
4. 65% of Pakistanis in America are foreign-born. 57% of foreign-born Pakistani-American population is made up of naturalized citizens.
5. There are 120,000 Pakistani legal permanent residents of which 42% are eligible to naturalize.
6. There were 69,202 immigrant visas issued to Pakistanis from 2001 to 2010, the 5th highest among Asian nations.
7. 28% of Pakistanis have limited English proficiency.
8. Average per capita income of Pakistani-Americans is $24,663.00
9. 15% of Pakistanis are classified as poor; only 1% of them are on public assistance.
10. 8% of Pakistanis are unemployed, a figure lower than the general population of Americans.
11. 55% of Pakistanis own their own homes.
12. 55% of Pakistanis have a bachelor's degree or higher.
13. Median age of Pakistanis in America is only 29 years, lower than most of the Asian groups and the national median age of 36.8 years.
Pakistani-American community is still relatively young when compared with other immigrant groups. More of the Pakistanis in America are college educated than the general population of whites and various immigrant groups. The youthful energy and higher education levels of Pakistani-Americans are opening doors for them to rise and shine in America, in spite of the current economic difficulties in their adopted land of opportunities.
Related Links:
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Edible Arrangements- A Pakistani-American's Success Story
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Pakistani-American's Game-Changing Vision
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Pakistani-American Elected Mayor
Huma Abedin Calm Amid Twittergate
Silicon Valley Summit of Pakistani Entrepreneurs
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Comments
...Since Pakistan only came into existence in 1947, any documentation of the life of Pakistani Americans can technically only commence from that year. However, it should be noted that Muslim immigrants from India and the region that is now Pakistan entered the United States as early as the eighteenth century, working alongside their Hindu or Sikh brethren in agriculture, logging, and mining in the western states of California, Oregon, and Washington.
In 1907, around 2,000 Indians, including Hindus and Muslims, worked alongside other immigrants from China, Japan, Korea, and Italy on the building of the Western Pacific railway in California. Other Indians worked on building bridges and tunnels for California's other railroad projects. As the demand for agricultural labor increased in California, Indians turned to the fields and orchards for employment. Muslim agricultural workers in California sometimes brought an Imam or learned man to the fields with them. The Imam proceeded to pray from the Holy Quran several times a day when the men took their breaks.
Muslims from the Indian subcontinent became successful as land tenants in the early part of the twentieth century, and leased or owned land in many California counties in order to grow rice. Many of these ventures were very successful, and many Indians, Hindu and Muslim, prospered financially as they increased their acreage and even bought small farms and orchards; however, heavy rains in 1920 devastated some rice crops and drove some Indians into bankruptcy.
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The immigration of Indians, Hindu and Muslim, was tightly controlled by the American government during this time, and Indians applying for visas to travel to the United States were often rejected by U.S. diplomats in important Indian cities like Madras and Calcutta. In addition, legislation was introduced in the United States that attempted to legally restrict the entry of Indians and other Asians into America as well as to deny them residency and citizenship rights. Some of these pieces of legislation were defeated, while others were adopted. For instance, a literacy clause was added to a number of bills, requiring that immigrants pass a literacy test to be considered eligible for citizenship. This effectively ensured that most Indians would not be able to meet the requirements. It was only in 1947 that Congress passed a bill allowing naturalization for Indians. Between 1947 and 1965 there were only around 2,500 Pakistani immigrants in the United States according to reports from the Immigration and Naturalization Service.
SIGNIFICANT IMMIGRATION WAVE
The largest numbers of Pakistani Americans have migrated to the United States since 1965, when the U.S. government lifted previously existing immigration restrictions and repealed quotas. Numbers of Pakistani immigrants swelled after 1970, with thousands of Pakistanis entering the United States each year since that time. Like their Asian Indian counterparts, they tended to be urban, well-educated, and professional. Many of them had come from cities like Karachi and Lahore, and were familiar with Western culture and ways of living. However, the dependents and relatives that they have since sponsored for permanent residence in and citizenship to the United States in the years after 1965 have tended to be characterized by lower levels of education....
Read more: Pakistani Americans - History, Early immigration, Significant immigration wave, Acculturation and Assimilation, Cuisine http://www.everyculture.com/multi/Le-Pa/Pakistani-Americans.html#ixzz1goN4pE00
Pakistan’s inflation slowed in December to the lowest level in 25 months, giving the central bank scope to cut interest rates.
Consumer prices rose 9.75 percent from a year earlier, the Bureau of Statistics said in Islamabad today. That compares with a 10.19 percent gain in November.
Emerging markets from Indonesia to Thailand have eased monetary policy to support consumer demand as Europe’s debt crisis threatens a global economic slump. Pakistan’s central bank last month left rates unchanged, pausing to gauge the impact of a 2 percentage-point cut since the end of July as foreign investment declines.
“The easing inflation trend will give room for another rate cut,” said Raza Jafri, an economist at AKD Securities Ltd. in Karachi. “The central bank will still closely monitor inflation pressures emanating from the rupee’s weakness.”
The Pakistan rupee weakened 5 percent to 89.95 against the U.S. dollar in 2011, risking higher import costs. The Karachi Stock Exchange 100 Index declined 5.6 percent last year.
Policy makers in Pakistan plan to boost economic growth from 2.4 percent in the year ended June 30, one of the lowest expansions in the past decade, as the country struggled to cope with floods and militant attacks.
The growth rate may be 0.5 percentage point lower than the government target of 4.2 percent for the current fiscal year, a finance ministry official said Oct. 19, citing the impact of floods in the country.
Floods in August forced more than one million people from their homes and damaged crops in parts of southern Pakistan still recovering from the worst ever monsoon inundations in 2010. Terror attacks in the South Asian nation have killed at least 35,000 people since 2006, according to government estimates.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-02/pakistan-inflation-slows-to-two-year-low-easing-rate-pressure.html
Thank goodness pro football doesn't have a salary cap on boats.
The NFL's newest owner, Shahid Khan, is looking to unload his majestic 223-foot yacht for the cool price of $112 million. The Jacksonville Jaguars boss recently put the 2007 German-made vessel he calls the Kismet up for sale with Moran Yacht & Ship of Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.
What do you get for $112 million? A better question would be what don't you get? The ship comes loaded with a formal dining salon, disco, teak decks, jacuzzi, sauna and gym. High-end woodwork details everything from a beer keg to a motorcycle hatch with crane. There's also a 25-foot Chris Craft boat, Yamaha WaveRunners and other surpasses, the Florida Times-Union reports.
The ship sleeps 12 guests in six impressive staterooms with crew of 17, including three stewardesses, a chef, a sous chef and the always important masseuse, beautician and therapist.
If the asking price is too high for your modest budget, Khan is making his big boat available to rent as the much more affordable price of $600,000 per week -- plus expenses -- for Caribbean cruises over the winter and about $789,000 a week for summer trips to the Mediterranean, according to the Times-Union.
Khan denied he's selling the boat to help cover the cost of buying the Jaguars. "That check has cleared. (The boat being for sale) is totally unrelated to the Jaguars," Khan told the Jacksonville Daily Record. (He also said if he had owned the Jaguars a few years ago he would have had Jacksonville select Tim Tebow.)
By the way, the Kismet's asking price ($112 million) is 34 percent more than the entire Jaguars player payroll (around $73 million) last season.
http://www.thepostgame.com/blog/list/201202/shahid-khan-yacht-for-sale#1
Last week’s sale of the Jacksonville Jaguars thrust soon-to-be new NFL owner Shahid Khan into the spotlight. A low profile private businessman for 30 years at Flex-N-Gate, an international auto supply company, he had rarely appeared in national press and never before was listed among the Forbes 400 Richest Americans or on our list of the world’s billionaires. Khan’s acquisition of the NFL team for $760 million and the strong performance of his company suggest that indeed he may be one of the richest people in America.
A naturalized U.S. citizen, Khan immigrated from Pakistan in 1967 at age 16. He built his wealth, which is likely enough to earn him a spot among the world’s billionaires in our 2012 rankings, through Flex-N-Gate, which he originally joined while earning his engineering degree from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
Khan left Flex-N-Gate in1978 to found his own company, Bumper Works, and created a new one-piece car bumper design that would become the industry standard. He bought his former employer two years later and merged operations. Over the next two decades, Khan expanded Flex-N-Gate’s operations with contracts to provide parts to many of the largest automobile companies, including Toyota.
Still a private company, Flex-N-Gate surpassed $3 billion in sales this year, according to the company, making it the 14th largest North American automotive supplier. It employs over 12,450 people internationally at plants throughout Canada, the United States, Mexico, Argentina, and Spain. Flex-N-Gate’s manufacturing expertise has expanded to include interior and exterior plastics, lighting systems, mechanical assemblies, metal structural body components, and exterior metal parts.
Khan previously tried to buy the St. Louis Rams last year, but was blocked when fellow billionaire and then-minority Rams owner Stan Kroenke exercised his right of first refusal option to purchase the team himself. He has agreed to pay $760 million this time for 100 percent control of the Jaguars; that price includes the assumption of the team’s debt and some debt of his own.
The new Jaguars owner has a complicated history with the IRS, which accused Khan and his wife of trying to illegally shelter $250 million from federal taxes from 1999 to 2003. Khan, who has said he repaid the $68 million in disputed taxes, currently has lawsuits pending against both the IRS and his former financial advisers.
Outside of Flex-N-Gate, Khan also founded and owns two smaller companies, Bio-Alternative, a bio-diesel tech company, and Smart Structures, which monitors the structural health of bridges.
Khan and his wife Ann have also given back millions of dollars to their alma mater, the University of Illinois. On campus, they’ve endowed five Khan Professorships, the Khan Annex library expansion, and the Khan Outdoor Tennis Complex.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/briansolomon/2011/12/05/private-billionaire-shahid-khan-revealed-in-jaguars-sale/
To appreciate the economic influence the Pakistanis living in America could exert on the country of their origin, we should have some idea about their wealth, sources of income and aggregate incomes. Their total annual income is of the order of $45 to $50 billion a year. The savings rate should be around 25 per cent of the income, which is typical of immigrant groups. This means that about $12 billion a year is being set aside and invested in the creation of assets. Since the diaspora was formed over a period of more than 25 years, I estimate the asset base of this community at about $175 billion. The income from this should be about $8 billion a year. Originally, salaries and wages were the main source of income. Now, with a sizeable asset base, one-sixth of the incomes are drawn from returns on investments. With these numbers as the background, we can begin to understand the source of remittances and other capital flows that originate from this particular diaspora.
In the last two decades, there was a 16-fold increase in the amount of remittances sent by Pakistanis living and working in the United States. These increased from $150 million in 1991-92 to 2.4 billion in 2011-12. This represents an increase of 15 per cent a year. The rate of growth in remittances from this particular source was almost four times the rate of increase in the national product. Another way of looking at this flow of capital is in terms of its contribution to the increase in GDP. Assuming that currently the incremental capital output ratio for Pakistan is four — meaning that it takes four per cent of GDP to be invested to generate a one per cent increase in the national product — about a 0.3 percentage point increase in national income could be attributed to the remittances from the United States. Could this amount increase even further and could it be used more effectively? I will take up these questions in the article next week.
http://tribune.com.pk/story/522240/the-economic-impact-of-the-pakistani-american-diaspora/
Her works are part of the permanent collections of some of the world’s most famous museums—the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney, the Guggenheim. In 2005, The New York Times called her an “an artist on the verge of shaking things up.” The year before that, Newsweek counted her among the clutch of overachieving South Asians “transforming America’s cultural landscape.” Shahzia Sikander, arguably Pakistan’s most famous living modern artist, has been wowing the international art world with her multidisciplinary works inspired from Mughal-era miniature painting techniques and tropes. She’s been scoring accolades since graduating from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1995. Last year, the U.S. secretary of State awarded her the Inaugural Medal of Art. She’s previously won a MacArthur “Genius Grant.” While Pakistan hasn’t entirely ignored Sikander—she won the President’s National Pride of Honor award in 2005—she’s hardly a household name in her home country, and viewed by Pakistani critics as an outlier. We spoke with Sikander recently about her art and life. Excerpts:
From the National College of Arts in Lahore to the pinnacle of the global art scene, what’s the journey been like for you?
Complex, the way life is. It’s hard to summarize more than two decades in a single answer—besides, the journey is still unfolding. In retrospect I would have, perhaps, made some different decisions, but I’m appreciative of all the opportunities and detours I experienced that helped me develop my ability to think and express.
You’ve rarely held any shows in Pakistan, why?
Not being invited in any serious manner to exhibit works in Pakistan is an issue. Compounding the situation is also the fact that almost all of my work got collected rapidly by international museums in the late 1990s and early 2000s. To show the work, it has to be loaned directly from the [collecting] institutions. It was never as simple as putting the work in a suitcase to be brought over to Pakistan to exhibit.
Do you think your work has helped change how women artists from the Muslim world are viewed abroad, judged on the basis of the work rather than the baggage of biography?
Our actions speak for ourselves. If anything my choices in life do not fit into any stereotypes. I am a strong advocate for women’s education. The support I received from my family and mentors in Pakistan was instrumental in allowing me to think for myself, take responsibility for my actions, and develop a healthy sense of independence and self-worth. Unfortunately, stereotypes get resurrected often around the world for all sorts of people. Muslim women are subjected to this much more frequently. Over the years there have been numerous opportunities to debunk or challenge these stereotypes, and I have been there many times through my work and through my life.
How much of your work is informed by your heritage, your Pakistani identity?
My identity is very much about my being from the subcontinent. It is not as if I left my roots and have to find ways to engage with them. I came of age in Pakistan. My engagement with Indo-Persian miniature painting started in the mid to late-’80s when I was studying at the NCA........
http://newsweekpakistan.com/the-forgotten-daughter/
... And I shared with him that I had the opportunity, back in 1980 when I was a very young man, to visit Pakistan because I had two Pakistani roommates in college whose mothers taught me how to cook daal and keema, and other very good Pakistani food. And it was a wonderful trip for me, and created a great appreciation and a great love for the Pakistani people.
I know that Pakistani Americans here in the United States are enormous contributors to the growth and development of the United States, and so we have these strong people-to-people connections. And my hope is, is that despite what inevitably will be some tensions between our two countries and occasional misunderstandings between our two countries, that the fundamental goodwill that is shared between the Pakistani people and the American people, that that will be reflected in our governments’ relationships and that we will continue to make progress in the coming years.
So, Mr. Prime Minister, welcome. And thank you for an excellent conversation and an excellent visit.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/10/23/remarks-president-obama-and-prime-minister-nawaz-sharif-pakistan-after-b
http://southwindsor.patch.com/groups/elections/p/democrats-take-council
http://www.ummid.com/news/2013/November/20.11.2013/connecticut-gets-first-muslim-mayor.html
One man who is trying to prevent impoverished, uneducated children from getting caught up in sectarian violence is Bashir Ahmad. What makes him strikingly different to the other would-be saviors of Charrah Pind is the fact that he is a 33-year-old U.S. Army vet, raised in Virginia. He’s also a professional mixed-martial-arts (MMA) fighter.
‘Where we create good citizens’
Ahmad was born in Pakistan and grew up in the U.S. before returning to Lahore in 2007, after completing his U.S. military service. He has since built up a community of MMA fighters, established the country’s first promotion — as companies that organize MMA bouts are called — and opened two gyms. But most importantly, he is using the sport to create opportunities for kids to get out of poverty.
“Peace through sports,” he says. “I’ve got that on my shorts.”
Ahmad’s commercial gym is called Synergy. But, in Charrah Pind, he has opened a second facility named Shaheen (“Falcon”) and gives free classes to the neighborhood kids. He drives there, passing mothers bundled in ragged shawls and children going from car to car begging for money or selling roses.
The slum is an island of destitution encircled by the more affluent, military-owned Defense Housing Authority township that surrounds it. Rickshaws, mopeds and the occasional horse and cart clog up the narrow roads. A butcher slaughters chickens on a wooden table. Bloodied feathers flutter to the ground.
Shaheen is in the basement of a nondescript building. It doesn’t seem like much — some mats, a couple of punch bags and a ring — but to the kids that use it, it is everything. Among them is Abu Bakr, a quiet 11-year-old with neatly brushed hair who lives in Charrah Pind with his family. Abu Bakr’s mother is a cleaner at Ahmad’s other gym, where Abu Bakr would sit for hours, watching as Ahmad and the other martial artists sparred and grappled, before being asked to train with them.
Yum! Brands, Inc. (NYSE: YUM) today announced the promotion of Sabir Sami, 54, to KFC Division Chief Executive Officer, reporting to Yum! Brands Chief Executive Officer David Gibbs, effective January 1, 2022. Sami, who currently serves as KFC Division Chief Operating Officer and Managing Director of KFC Asia, will succeed Tony Lowings, who is stepping down as CEO at the end of 2021 in advance of his retirement in early 2022. In addition, Dyke Shipp, 55, who currently serves as KFC Division Chief Development Officer and Chief People Officer, is being promoted to KFC Division President, reporting to Sami, effective January 1, 2022. (Photo: Business Wire)
Yum! Brands, Inc. (NYSE: YUM) today announced the promotion of Sabir Sami, 54, to KFC Division Chief Executive Officer, reporting to Yum! Brands Chief Executive Officer David Gibbs, effective January 1, 2022. Sami, a 12-year veteran of the Company, who currently serves as KFC Division Chief Operating Officer and Managing Director of KFC Asia, will succeed Tony Lowings, who is stepping down as CEO at the end of 2021 in advance of his retirement in early 2022. In this role, Sami will assume global responsibility for driving the brand strategy and performance of KFC.
“Sabir is an exceptional leader with deep expertise and knowledge of our business and has a strong, proven track record of growing KFC’s physical and brand presence in markets around the world,” said Gibbs. “As a highly-respected strategic brand builder, operations expert and heart-led leader, Sabir is a natural choice to continue successfully executing KFC’s long-term global growth strategies in close partnership with our franchisees and further elevate KFC as a relevant, easy and distinctive (R.E.D.) brand.”
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KFC is the global leader in the chicken category and Yum!’s largest brand with more than 25,000 restaurants in over 145 countries and territories and more than $26 billion in system sales as of year-end 2020. KFC’s unit economics fueled by strong franchise partners leads to, on average, a new KFC restaurant opening every six hours across the world. In addition to new unit development, the KFC Division added nearly $4 billion in system sales from digital channels last year to grow the KFC digital business to about $10 billion in system sales in 2020.