Four days ago Bilal Fibres Ltd (PSX: BILF) – once a modest spinning mill on the dusty Sheikhupura Road – told the Pakistan Stock Exchange it had approved a Rs10 million business plan to create an in-house IT division. The nine-page filing sketches a start-up more reminiscent of a co-working loft than a ginning shed: five laptops, two software engineers, a marketing specialist, and a go-to-market playbook that explicitly name-checks Upwork, Fiverr and other online labour platforms for client acquisition.
Management says the cash will cover basic kit, registrations and one year of salaries; breakeven is pencilled in for “12–18 months” on the back of website builds (Rs100–250 k each), mobile-app minimum viable products (Rs300 k–1 m) and monthly IT-support retainers. Board minutes show annual revenue potential of Rs12–70 million if the team lands even a handful of contracts each quarter.
The announcement follows an earlier progress report stating that spinning operations remain suspended and that the mill’s revival would hinge on “Technology/ICT… in view of limited financial resources”. External coverage quickly framed the shift as “a textile manufacturer entering IT” and highlighted the board’s hope of tapping SME demand at home and in the Gulf.
If the plan sounds quixotic, investors do not seem fazed: BILF shares are still up more than eight-fold year-to-date, trading at Rs21.3 compared with Rs2.3 last October, despite the company recording zero yarn sales for two straight years. The content in this publication is expensive to produce. But unlike other journalistic outfits, business publications have to cover the very organizations that directly give them advertisements. Hence, this large source of revenue, which is the lifeblood of other media houses, is severely compromised on account of Profit’s no-compromise policy when it comes to our reporting. No wonder, Profit has lost multiple ad deals, worth tens of millions of rupees, due to stories that held big businesses to account. Hence, for our work to continue unfettered, it must be supported by discerning readers who know the value of quality business journalism, not just for the economy but for the society as a whole.To read the full article, subscribe and support independent business journalism in Pakistan
