Dubai-based Dutch national Dr Salomon Jacobus “Cobus” van Rooijen has snapped up an 84.84 % voting stake in Karachi-listed ZIL Ltd., the 71-year-old maker of Capri beauty soap and other personal-care staples.
In a notice to the Pakistan Stock Exchange dated 15 May 2025, ZIL disclosed that Van Rooijen’s vehicle TWF Holding LLC-FZ purchased 5,194,514 shares at Rs297.50 apiece on 12 May, valuing the block at Rs1.55 billion ($5.5 million). The seller, intriguingly, is New Future Consumer International General Trading LLC, another single-member UAE company also wholly owned by Van Rooijen.
The internal reshuffle hands the 59-year-old executive direct control of Pakistan’s oldest private soap maker and positions him as board chairman. Yet the match-up of a career beer salesman with a consumer-goods minnow in a country where alcohol is largely prohibited raises more questions than the terse PSX filing answers.
Van Rooijen is no stranger to consumer brands — but almost all of them fizz. According to the résumé published on ZIL’s website, he spent the 2000s running Castle Brewing Namibia and sat on the executive boards of Heineken Russia and Amber Beverage Group Latvia. Earlier still, he was global exports director at SABMiller. He later added stints in Dutch wax-print fashion house Vlisco BV, but his professional centre of gravity has been beer: route-to-market overhauls, acquisition due diligence and emergency turnarounds from Africa to Eastern Europe.
Today he operates from Dubai as managing director of New Future Consumer International (NFCI), hunting for fast-moving-consumer-goods (FMCG) assets and joint ventures. His personal holding outfits (NFCI and now TWF) are the ones funding the ZIL play.
ZIL Ltd: A Hyderabad soap pot that never stopped simmering
ZIL’s origins trace back to 1954, when the Ali family — led by industrial patriarch Syed Wajid Ali — opened a small soap works in Hyderabad. The aim was simple: substitute imported toilet soaps with a local brand Pakistanis could afford. Over the decades the factory expanded from copper kettles to continuous saponification lines, changed its legal name from Zulfeqar Industries to ZIL Ltd. in 1986, and seeded brands such as Capri, Opal, Hype and Hypro.
The Alis controlled the business for six decades before gradually cashing out. In 2023 they sold 61% of equity — and subsequently more — to UAE-registered NFCI at roughly Rs301 per share. That transaction installed Van Rooijen on the board but left day-to-day operations to company veterans in Karachi and Hyderabad.
The company’s brand portfolio today includes Capri gel, beauty-bar and hand-wash lines are the flagship, positioned as mid-tier fragrant soaps for young women; Hype which targets teenagers with bright colour; Hypro, which is a germ-protection entry-price bar. It also owns Opal, a glycerine transparent soap aimed at niche shoppers.
ZIL also runs a contract-manufacturing arm that makes private-label laundry products for local retailers.
Public filings show net sales rose 12 % to Rs6.37 billion in 2024, but rising tallow and palm-stearin prices slashed net profit 83 % to Rs42.9 million (EPS Rs7.01). The company declared a 25 % cash dividend anyway, financed largely from working-capital improvements.
Margins are thin: gross at 27.7 %, net below 1 %. Leverage is low, but so is free cash flow once the dividend is paid. For Van Rooijen, ZIL is less a cash-cow than a platform needing capital, marketing muscle and — perhaps — an exit route.
Why would a beer executive fancy Pakistani soap?
Pakistan banned alcohol sales to Muslims in April 1977, a prohibition later reinforced under Gen Zia-ul-Haq’s Hudood ordinances. While bootleg liquor and Murree Brewery supply a grey market, legitimate per-capita beer consumption hovers near zero. A lifetime brewing professional, then, gains no obvious synergy from a stake in a soap maker operating in a dry market.
There are, however, several potential reasons why this stake still makes sense. The first is pure portfolio diversification. Van Rooijen’s beer résumé disguises a broader FMCG skill-set. Soap, like beer, rides on brand equity, distribution reach and raw-material arbitrage.
The second is the low-priced entry ticket. Just Rs1.55 billion buys a controlling stake in a listed company with physical assets, nationwide distribution and decades-old trademarks — cheaper than a craft brewery.
There is also the regional export play. Capri already ships small volumes to the Gulf. A Dubai-based owner could use UAE free-zone warehouses to push soaps into Africa, where Van Rooijen’s beer contacts run deep.
The share transfer from NFCI to TWF shows he is shuffling assets among his own vehicles, possibly to prepare ZIL for debt funding or a future strategic sale.
The founding Alis retain a small public float but no board seat. Family scions like Syed Asad Ali now direct philanthropic and textile interests. The sale marks another classic Pakistani tale: pioneering industrialists hand off to foreign investors when succession or capital limitations bite.
The PSX notice reveals the buyer and seller share a beneficial owner; in effect Van Rooijen bought the shares from himself. Why? TWF-FZ may offer looser disclosure regimes or tax advantages versus NFCI. A new vehicle can pledge shares for bank financing or invite minority partners later. Direct shareholding lets him consolidate voting power without having to filter decisions through NFCI’s governance.
Regardless, the deal triggers takeover-code disclosures but not a mandatory tender offer, because no change of control occurred in substance.
Can ZIL grow under Dutch stewardship?
The Hyderabad plant runs legacy batch kettles alongside one modern continuous line; converting fully to energy-efficient processes could cost Rs1 billion. Given thin margins, internal cash generation is unlikely to fund that without new equity.
Capri’s share in beauty bars has slid to single digits as Unilever’s Lux and P&G’s Safeguard flood TV screens. Digital-first campaigns and line extensions into shower gels might arrest the slide, but require marketing budgets far above current levels.
SAFTA preferences allow zero-duty soap exports to Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, markets Van Rooijen’s African beer networks do not cover. Whether the new owner can assemble a trade team and secure shelf space abroad remains to be seen.
ZIL’s new chairman built his reputation selling lager from Namibia to Novosibirsk, only to arrive in a country where Muslims — 96 % of the population — face legal penalties for drinking. The contrast invites irony.
Beer marketing thrives on pub culture; Pakistani soap ads lean on family purity and modesty. The government that blocks Heineken bottles at customs welcomes a Heineken alumnus as majority owner of a local FMCG firm.
Yet the paradox may be overstated. Multinationals from Diageo to AB InBev park billions in soft-drink and snack subsidiaries worldwide. Commerce, after all, often trumps categories.
What next?
Van Rooijen already chairs the board; expect fresh appointments of consumer-marketing specialists and supply-chain veterans. For now, minority holders can only watch. The PSX symbol ZIL has risen 25 % since the notice, flirting with its highest level in a decade. Whether that is justified will depend on how quickly the Dutchman turns suds into serious cash.
The ex-Heineken troubleshooter into the heart of Pakistan’s personal-care business — an arena where local consumers buy four billion soap bars a year but multinationals wield the advertising clout. The acquisition price is small change by global standards, yet the strategic puzzle is large: can a man steeped in lager rekindle the sparkle of Capri beauty soap?
Sceptics cite cultural dissonance and razor-thin margins; optimists see a seasoned FMCG tactician entering at a bargain valuation. Either way, the transaction underscores two truths about Pakistan’s consumer market: legacy family brands are up for grabs, and even in a country where beer is verboten, the man who once sold it can still make a bold bet — this time, on bubbles that are perfectly halal.
