Adpower has a long and proud history associated with the Adamjee family.
The Adamjee name has been a prominent and highly reputed name amongst the business circles of the Indian subcontinent throughout the 20th century.
The House of Adamjee was founded in Burma (now Myanmar) by the illustrious Sir Adamjee Haji Dawood. (1880-1948).
Born in 1880 in Jetpur Town of Gujarat. Whilst still in his teens, he ventured out to Burma and started operating as an independent businessman. The first few years of his career were spent in rice, matches & jute trade. With his keen business sense and financial acumen, he met with early success.
By 1922, he had accumulated sufficient resources and a strong presence in the commodities markets, enabling him to setup his first Industrial venture - a match factory in Rangoon [now Yangon]. In 1927, he returned to India to establish a jute mill in Calcutta. The Adamjee Jute Mill Ltd. was the third jute mill to be setup by an Indian and the first Muslim public company. To capture this emerging niche, Adamjee along with Mr. G.D. Birla of Birla Jute, broke into this monopolistic trade controlled by the East India company. The founding father of the Adamjee industrial group was not just a businessman, but also an avid educationist and philanthropist. Education of the youth, was a subject very close to his heart, thus he was responsible for financing and helping a number of educational institutions. In addition to that, he also established numerous educational institutions from his own resources. In recognition for his services to his countrymen, the British government knighted him in 1938.
By the 1940, Sir Adamjee, as he was then called, had become a prominent figure in the business circles of India and Burma. His recognition was acknowledged by Muhammad Ali Jinnah (Founder of Pakistan) who become a good friend and appointed him advisor to the freedom movement of the Muslims, which eventually led to the Creation of Pakistan. Sir Adamjee at the request of Jinnah, convinced the entire Memon & Gujarati Muslim communities to migrate to Pakistan.
With this vision in mind again at the request of Jinnah, he also established two major institutions along with Mr. M.A. Ispahani i.e. The Muslim Commercial Bank Ltd. and the Orient Airways Ltd. The purpose of this was to assist the migration process by providing transport of Muslims to Pakistan and to create banking facilities in the new country. Once Pakistan was created, Sir Adamjee and his sons established businesses in both East (now Bangladesh) & West Pakistan.
In January 1948, six months after the creation, Pakistan fell in financial difficulties and was in urgent need of funds. On January 24th 1948, Jinnah sent an "SOS" to Sir Adamjee who rushed to Karachi on 25th to the present day Governor House and presented a Blank Cheque to Jinnah to save Pakistan from financial collapse. Though Sir Adamjee passed away in the very early days of Pakistan, his dedication lived on in the ideas and ideals passed on to his family. It was this same spirit and dedication that led his eldest son Mr. A.W. Adamjee to spearhead the industrial and financial development efforts of the new country, which was industrially backward. At the time, the Adamjee Group was the only business house of its kind with experience in large scale manufacturing.
In less than two decades, the Adamjee group setup and managed over forty industrial and financial enterprises in the East and West Pakistan, Burma, Thailand, Malaysia, Lebanon and United Kingdom.
