The ARY Family
The ARY family was pioneer in private TV in Pakistan. ARY, as abbreviated for Abdul Razzak Yaqoob, runs a network of TV channels and its business empire is spread across the globe. Not only in TV broadcast, the family does businesses in film production as well. Abdul Razzak Yaqoob was a gold bullion trader who founded ARY Gold company in the United Arab Emirates and later he launched ARY Media Group in 2000. Today, the TV broadcasting business is taken over by Abdul Razzak Yaqoob’s nephew Mohammad Salman Iqbal, who expanded the business from one single TV channel to a network of channels. The family runs more businesses abroad than in Pakistan where ARY News and other ARY Network channels attract good viewership besides gold business. However, the family is mostly focused on its businesses abroad such as united Arab Emirates, United Kingdom and the United States of America.
Business
TV Broadcasting
ARY Communications (Private) Limited
ARY Digital Asia
ARY Digital Middle East
ARY Digital UK/Europe
ARY Digital USA
Film Distribution
ARY Film
Film Production
ARY Films
Media
ARY Digital FZ LLC (Dubai, United Arab Emirates)
Family & Friends
Affiliated Interests Family Members Friends
the founder of ARY Digital Network as well as its chief executive. He also owns the ARY Group that his uncle Abdul Razzak Yaqoob, a bullion trader based in Dubai until his death in 2014 founded. He is the son of Haji Muhammad Iqbal, one of the four owners of the group.
Iqbal manages ARY Films, which is part of his group. As a businessman, Iqbal is known as the founder of the 24-hour news cycle network in Pakistan launching the country’s first-ever private 24/7 news and current affairs ARY News TV channel after military ruler General Pervez Musharraf allowed private broadcast media for the first time in the country in 2002.
In December 2015, Iqbal bought the ‘Karachi Kings’ cricket franchise for an undisclosed amount to play in Pakistan Super League of cricket.
Salman Iqbal’s brother, holds 9% shares in ARY Communications (Private) Limited, which owns ARY News channel.
Muhammad Iqbal is father of Mohammad Salman Iqbal and he is among four brothers of ARY family. There are little information publicly available about Muhammad Iqbal nor did the family provided any details after an information request was sent to seek information for MOM Pakistan.
Further Information
Meta Data
An information request was sent to the owner on 15 January 2019 through a courier company as well as by email on same day - 15 January 2019. There was no response to the request. A reminder was couriered on 01 February 2019 and emailed on 04 February 2019. Again, there was no response from the company to date. Documents about the ARY Communications (Private) Limited provided by Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan did not include any audited financial report for 2017-18, as requested by MOM Pakistan for its research, of the company although under the law registered company has to submit annual audit report to comply with regulations. The company does not share revenue, operating profit nor shareholders on its website although Dubai-based ARY Digital FZ LLC, which holds biggest shares in ARY Communications (Private) Limited, does provide all such details on its website - http://www.hoovers.com/company-information/cs/company-profile.a_r_y_digital_fz_llc.5eb70c5e0376a7ed.html?aka_re=1
