Engro Corporation


Engro Corporation, earlier known as Esso Fertilizers, is a Pakistani multinational conglomerate company with subsidiaries involved in production of fertilizers, foods, chemicals, energy and petrochemicals.
Its major subsidiaries, Engro Fertilizers, which is one of the largest fertilizer manufacturers of the world. Other major subsidiaries includes Sindh Engro Coal Mining Company, Engro Powergen, and Engro Polymer.

History

Founded as a fertilizer company in 1965 by an American company Esso on the Mari Gas field near Daharki, Sindh, with 75% of the shares owned by Esso and 25% by the general public.
The construction of a urea plant commenced at Daharki in 1966 and production began in 1968. At US $43 million with an annual production capacity of 173,000 tons, it was the single largest foreign investment by a multinational corporation in Pakistan at the time.
In 1978, the company renamed as Exxon Chemical Pakistan Limited.
In 1991, Exxon divested its fertilizer business on a global basis. The employees of Exxon Chemical Pakistan Limited, in partnership with leading international and local financial institutions, bought out Exxon's 75% equity. Subsequently, it was renamed as Engro Chemical Pakistan Limited.
In 1997, Engro Chemical Pakistan Limited made a joint-venture with Royal Vopak of Netherlands and founded Engro Vopak Terminal Limited on 50/50 partnership basis for handling bulk liquid chemical storage at Port Qasim Karachi. Later that year, another joint venture was formed between Engro, Asahi and Mitsubishi Corporation for the manufacturing and marketing of PVC resin in Pakistan.
Engro company was established in 2003, after which in 2005 Engro decided to diversify their business more by venturing into the food business by establishing Engro Foods.
Engro also ventured into the power generation business by setting up Engro Energy Limited in 2006, which later on was renamed as Engro Powergen Limited' in 2008.
In year 2007, Engro Asahi polymer divested its share in joint venture with Mitsubishi and the company renamed as Engro Polymer and Chemicals Limited.
In 2010, Engro Chemical Pakistan Limited renamed itself as Engro Corporation.
Engro sold 22% of its shares in Engro Fertilizer in 2016 to local and international investors via an accelerated book build. The partial disposal reduces Engro Corporation's holding to 57%, with the money raised being allocated to its energy business.

International expansion

In 2011, Engro Corporation had a major global diversification with the acquisition of US-based company, Al-Safa Halal. This new business venture comes under Engro Foods Canada Ltd and its subsidiary Engro Foods USA, LLC. Al Safa Halal targets 7 million population of Muslims in North America.