Shahid Khan… American billionaire of Pakistani descent!

Shahid Khan is an American billionaire of Pakistani origin, the world also knows him as a sports tycoon. He is the owner of ‘Flex N Gate’, a famous American car bumper manufacturing company.

He is the second richest person in the world who manufactures spare parts of vehicles, he is also considered as the richest person in Pakistan. This is the same Shahid Khan whose photo was published by the famous American magazine ‘Forbes’ on its cover in 2012 and called him the face of the ‘American Dream’.

He is the owner of billions of dollars today, but his life was not always so attractive and luxurious. Rather, he opened his eyes in 1950 in a middle class family in Lahore. His father was involved in industry and produced construction materials, while his mother was a mathematics professor.

Shahid Khan was only 16 years old when he began to develop a passion for studying abroad and making a good career. When he expressed his desire to his parents, his parents flatly refused to send him to the United States across the seven seas. done . But Shahid Khan remained adamant that he will die only after going to America.

Finally, the parents, surrendering to their child’s wishes, handed over all their savings, which was a few lakhs of rupees, to Shahid and sent him to America. After coming to America, Shahid realized his extraordinary abilities and talent.

He had an interest in cars since his childhood and was also keen to buy luxury cars for a period in his early life. Therefore, he made the automotive industry the focus of all his interests and enrolled in the Department of Industrial Engineering at the University of Illinois. But one thing that very few people know about Shahid Khan.

That is, he also decided to become an architect before enrolling in industrial engineering, but after completing only one semester in that field, he realized that he could not earn much money here and that he had to Opportunities to move forward were also less visible.

In such a situation, instead of continuing his studies like normal students, he left the studies of architect incomplete and enrolled in industrial engineering. During his college studies, Shahid used to pay for his own hostel and food, he started washing dishes at a local restaurant for $1.20 an hour.

Washing dishes and eating 2 meals a day, Shahid Khan completed his higher education with great difficulty. At the age of 21, he had obtained a degree in industrial engineering.

After completing his higher education, Shahid Khan got a job as an engineering director in an automotive spare parts company called ‘Flex in Jet’, the same company where Shahid worked part-time during his university studies. were

Shahid Khan worked in the said company for 7 years, his job was to improve and simplify the process of manufacturing spare parts in the factory.

In the presence of Shahid Khan, ‘Flex in Jet’ progressed very fast, but there was a time when Shahid Khan felt that the management of the company was not paying any attention to his projects. After a while, Shahid got used to the management’s attitude, but was disappointed when he realized that his new ideas were being completely ignored by the company. He resigned from the company in 1978.

After giving valuable time of his life to the said company and learning a lot from here, Shahid Khan did not intend to do any more job, instead he decided to start his own company, believing in himself.

Shahid Khan started his work by repairing old cars and installing new bumpers in them. Gradually, his work continued to increase and there was a time when he signed a contract with one of the world’s largest car manufacturing companies, General Motors.

After General Motors, they started making bumpers for trucks made in the 3 largest automobile manufacturing companies in America. On the one hand, Shahid Khan’s work was progressing rapidly, on the other hand, the same company ‘Flex N Gate’, which had rejected Shahid Khan’s plans, went into losses.

When Shahid Khan came to know about this, he became very sad, because he had been working for the said company for a long time and had a good relationship with the employees of this company. In view of this situation, in 1980, he decided to buy ‘Flex N Gate’. But the problem here was that Shahid Khan had invested all his money in his already started business.

Now he only had a bank balance of 16 thousand dollars. While they needed 66 thousand dollars to buy the company. Shahid Khan asked many of his friends and relatives to borrow money, but no one was willing to give Shahid Khan money to buy a bankrupt company, finally a bank liked his plan. And the bank gave him a loan of 50 thousand dollars.

Shahid Khan made a good offer to the owners of the company to buy Flex-N-Gate, which they immediately accepted. But while handing over Flex-N-Gate to Shahid Khan, its previous owners did not even realize that they are selling chickens that lay golden eggs.

They even thought that the person who bought the Flex N Gate company would go bankrupt after buying it. But nature had something else in mind. The same company which was running at a loss started to grow shortly after it came under the ownership of Shahid Khan.

Not only has the production of spare parts for vehicles increased in the factories of Flex N Gate, but the salaries of the company’s employees have also been doubled.

Shahid Khan has always kept a principle of his own that the spare parts of the vehicles manufactured by his factories will be beautiful and of high quality. Shahid Khan got the fruits of his hard work and determination in such a way that in 1984, he got a contract with Toyota, one of the biggest car manufacturing companies of that time.

At first they started making bumpers for Toyota pickups. Just 3 years after signing the contract with Toyota, Shahid Khan got the honor of being the largest bumper supplier of the said company in 1987, and in the next two years, Shahid’s company started making bumpers for all the vehicles manufactured in the factories of Toyota in America. Got it.

When Shahid Khan signed his first contract with Toyota, the total value of his company was only 17 million dollars, but in 2010, the same company became a company worth 2 billion dollars and then in 2022, it became a company worth 12 billion dollars.

In 2011, 12,000 employees were working in Shahid Khan’s 48 factories across America. With the passage of time, not only the number of his factories and the production of spare parts made in these factories increased, but today the number of employees working in Shahid Khan’s factories has also doubled to 27 thousand.

Apart from his interest in cars, Shahid Khan was also a big fan of football. He also planned to come to America and become a football player, but due to his business engagement, this dream remained unfulfilled. Even the greatest football player has not been lucky.

Shahid Khan made a brilliant decision to turn his hobby into a business. In 2012, he bought the famous American football club ‘Jacksonville Jaguars’ for 760 million dollars, while in 2013 he also took ownership of the famous English football club ‘Filham’ in London.

He also invested in the sport of wrestling and earned double profits here too. Regarding Shahid Khan, it is said that if you put your hand in the soil, it gives you gold, Shahid Khan tells the secret of his success in very beautiful words.

He says that if you want to start a business, get a job or find a solution to a problem, the way is not to throw money and you will get the desired results, but to find a solution to the problem. So you have to listen to people who are more qualified and experienced than you.

Shahid Khan advises the youth to never take any work for granted, but try to understand the importance of the work and learn from it. He says that when he used to wash dishes at a local restaurant, he There was a strong feeling that their future was in their own hands, if they wanted, they could spend their whole life washing dishes and if they wanted, they could make themselves the most successful person in the world.