Agha Hasan Abedi

Agha Hasan Abedi also affectionately known as Agha Sahab (May 14, 1922, Lucknow, India - August 5, 1995, Karachi, Pakistan) was a banker and philanthropist who founded the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) in 1972. The Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) that he founded, was at one point the seventh largest private bank in the world. It collapsed in 1991 after regulators in the United States and the United Kingdom found it to be involved in many illegal and fraudulent activities. Mr. Abedi underwent a heart transplant operation in 1988, and died of a heart attack later on August 5, 1995 in Karachi, Pakistan.

Agha with famous American boxer Muhammad Ali

[edit] Life

[edit] Early banking career

Agha Hasan Abedi was born in Lucknow, India and migrated to Pakistan after the partition of India, in 1947. Beginning his career with Habib Bank before independence, he brought about significant changes in Pakistan's banking culture when he founded the United Bank Ltd (UBL) in 1959. Starting as its first general manager, he quickly rose to the position of president and chairman of the board of directors. Under his stewardship, UBL became the second largest bank in Pakistan. Mr Abedi introduced a host of professional innovations, including the concept of personalised service and banking support to trade and industry, paying particular attention to the bank's overseas operations. One of the first to comprehend the opportunities offered by the oil boom in the Gulf, Mr Abedi pioneered close economic collaboration in the private sector between Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The UAE President, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, extended his patronage to UBL operations both in Pakistan and abroad.

Agha with US President Jimmy Carter

[edit] BCCI years

When banking was nationalised in Pakistan in 1972, Mr Abedi founded the Bank of Credit and Commerce International with the Bank of America NT & SA as a major shareholder. Registered in Luxembourg, the BCCI began its operations from a two-room head office in London. Over the years, it developed into a worldwide banking operation with branches in 72 countries and 16,000 employees on its payroll. Mr Abedi was personally responsible for inducting a large number of Pakistanis into the field of international banking and almost 80 per cent of the BCCI's top executive positions at the head office and in branches in various countries were held by Pakistanis. Mr Abedi severed his connection with BCCI in 1990 after suffering a heart attack and lead a retired life in Karachi until his death of heart failure at Karachi's Aga Khan hospital in 1995.

Agha with the Pope

BCCI had an interesting structure. It was an elaborate corporate tangle, with BCCI's founder, Agha Hasan Abedi and his assistant, Swaleh Naqvi, in the center. This convoluted structure was an essential component to its amazing growth – and guaranteed its eventual collapse. The structure was conceived of by Abedi for the specific purpose of evading regulation or control by governments. It also functioned to frustrate the full understanding of BCCI's operations by anyone(citation needed) (Accusations made but never proven).

Unlike regular banks, the BCCI was from its inception made up of multiplying layers of interwoven entities – which related to one another through a near impenetrable series of holding companies, affiliates, subsidiaries, banks-within-banks, insider dealings and nominee relationships. BCCI's fractured corporate structure, record keeping, regulatory review, and audits, allowed the complex BCCI family of entities created by Abedi to evade ordinary legal restrictions on the movement of capital and goods. In creating BCCI as a vehicle essentially free of government control, Abedi's BCCI became the ideal mechanism for facilitating illegal activity by others, including such activity by officials of many of the governments whose laws BCCI was breaking (Citation needed).

Agha chairing a BCCI Group conference

BCCI systematically bribed official and political figures around the world, and defrauded it customers of billions. Alleged crimes included money laundering in Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas; support of arms trafficking, and the sale of nuclear technologies; management of prostitution; the commission and facilitation of income tax evasion, smuggling, illegal immigration, illicit purchases of banks and real estate.

At the time of his death, Abedi was under indictment in several countries for crimes related to BCCI. However, Pakistani officials refused to give him up for extradition, claiming the charges were politically motivated. Even without this to consider, it is likely he would have been too sick to stand trial; he had been in poor health since suffering a stroke in the mid-1980s.

[edit] Philanthropist

INFAQ Foundation

Mr Abedi founded charitable organizations in UK, India, Bangladesh, Zimbabwe and Pakistan. A large proportion of the profit made by BCCI was donated to these foundations, every year as Mr. Abedi believed that the main objective of a person should be to help others. In Pakistan, the BCCI Foundation (renamed Infaq Foundation after the closure of BCCI), provides funding to charitable projects like hospitals, schools for special children, other educational institutions and social welfare organizations. It also provide scholarships, mainly for university education, to poor but brilliant students. It helps widow and other indigent persons in large number. As many performing artists earn very little in the Third world, INFAQ Foundation provides financial help and assistance to writers, scholars, artists and poets.It encourages them to teach their art to others so that these arts survive.

The Infaq Foundation has only one office in Karachi, Pakistan. It has Capital and Reserves of over Rs.2.50 billion, which in 2009 are equivalent to just over US$30 million. Major beneficiaries among the known institutions are, Sind Institute of Urology and Transplantation, National Institute of Cardio Vascular Diseases - Karachi, GIK Institute of Engineering Sciences & Technology, Topi, NWFP, Lady Duffirin Hospital and Sir Syed University of Engineering and Technology, Karachi. President Ghulam Ishaq Khan was the first Chairman of the Foundation from 1983 through 1995. Another eminent personality, a supreme court judge and a former Governor of Sindh - Justice Fakhruddin G Ibrahim, Hilal e Pakistan took over and is now the Chairman.

The Foundation has always been managed by highly competent Chief Executives. From 1981 to 1999 retired federal secretaries were Secretary Generals of the Foundation. From 1999 to 2008 the position was held by Mr. Sohail Kizilbash, a Chartered Accountant qualified in UK and a person with long banking experience. From 2009 another Chartered Accountant and former banker Mr. Anwar Gillani is the Honorary Secretary General.

Agha Hassan Abedi Auditorium Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engineering Sciences and Technology on the event of 8th Science fair 2007

Agha giving a speech to BCCI - Pace University Trainees

Mr. Abedi also founded BCCI FAST in 1980 with a donation of Rs. 100 million, to promote education in computer science. It is now the first multicampus university of Pakistan, known as National University of Computer and Emerging Sciences. It has four campuses situated in Islamabad, Peshawar, Karachi and Lahore.

GIK University was also the brainchild of Mr. Abedi. He felt that Pakistan should have another university for higher education, at Ph.D. level, for engineering and sciences and it should be comparable to universities in any developed country.

[edit] Trivia

• Agha Hasan Abedi Auditorium at GIK Institute, Pakistan, was named after him.
• The Gold Medal at the National University of Computer and Emerging Sciences (FAST), awarded to the highest CGPA Holder of the batch, is known as the Agha Hasan Abedi Gold Medal.
• His London home was in the London outskirts, in the affluent Harrow on the Hill, and was previously owned by Anthony Trollope
• In the words of former BCCI Chief Financial Officer Masih ur Rahman, who worked alongside Abedi for nearly three decades,his sister had once commented that "I remember looking into his eyes and seeing God and the Devil balanced equally in them."^[1]

[edit] References

1. ^ Staff interview, Rahman, August 7, 1991.

[edit] External links

Biographical

• Agha Hasan Abedi, Salaam
• Agha Hasan Abedi passes away, Dawn wire service

About BCCI

• The BCCI Affair, Federation of American Scientists (www.fas.org)

Misc

• About Foundation for Advancement of Science and Technology (FAST), National University
• Genesis, GIK Institute