even prior to that they claim to have started business in UAE when Bhutto nationalized their so called multi hundred rupees foundry in early 70s
Muhammad Sharif along with his
six brothers ( abba ji and his brothers not nawaz and his brothers), established a
foundry in
1969. In
1976, Prime Minister
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto nationalized the steel industry, including the Ittefaq family business empire — Ittefaq Group. In
1985 , General
Mohammad Zia ul-Haq returned the business after developing political links with the Sharifs.
During the 1980s ( when he was in zia government), Ittefaq Group expanded from five mills to 30 businesses which produced steel, sugar, paper, and textiles and annual revenues were estimated at $400 million
( Wasnt he the chief minister of Punjab at the time).
Nawaz Sharif started his political career during the period of
nationalisation policies introduced by former Prime minister
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. The Sharif family were financially devastated (
padh lo) after the family steel business was nationalised, and Sharif jumped into national politics soon afterwards. In 1976 Sharif joined the
Pakistan Muslim League, a conservative front rooted in the Punjab province. He initially focused on regaining control of his steel plants from the government (
he did not join for the betterment of country but he joined to get his mills back how selfish no nationalism or patriotism in sharifs). In May 1980
Ghulam Jilani Khan, the recently appointed Governor of the Punjab Province and a former Director-General of the
Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), initiated a search for new urban leaders; Sharif was one of the men he found and promoted, quickly making him
Finance Minister of the Punjab
( a blunder by a dictator ).
He maintained close relations with Zia-ul-Haq,
who soon agreed to return the steel mill which had been lost to nationalisation by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Sharif maintained an alliance with General
Rahimuddin Khan, who was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee. During his political career, Sharif also had close ties with the Director-General of ISI, Lieutenant-General (retired)
Hamid Gul, who played a substantial role in the formation of the
Islami Jamhoori Ittehad (IJI) – a conservative political alliance that supported Sharif.
Sharif invested in
Saudi Arabia and other oil-rich
Arab countries in the Middle East to rebuild his steel empire. According to personal accounts and his time spent with Sharif, American historian
Stephen Philips Cohen states in his book
Idea of Pakistan: "Nawaz Sharif never forgave
Bhutto after his steel empire was lost into the hands of Bhutto; and even after [Bhutto's]
terrible end, Sharif publicly refused to forgive the soul of Bhutto or the
Pakistan Peoples Party." After coming to national power in 1990, Sharif attempted to reverse of Bhutto's nationalisation policies, introducing an economy based on
privatisation and
economic liberalisation.