Up until the mid-2000s, the Yousuf Dewan Companies (YDC) was one of the biggest business conglomerates in Pakistan. It had business interests in sugar, artificial thread, textile, cement, automobiles and even the import of fertiliser. But the group borrowed truckloads of money to fuel its extraordinary expansion. Mismanagement, the economic slowdown and banks’ non-lenient approach resulted in the fall. The companies made the cardinal sin — defaulting on loan repayments.
That made YDC, formerly known as the Dewan Group, the single largest defaulter of Pakistani banks. The debt involved was estimated to be over Rs40 billion. Since then the group chairman and chief executive, Dewan Yousuf Farooqui, has helplessly watched his businesses struggle.
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