BESTWAY GROUP is one of the largest family-owned businesses in the UK with a turnover of approximately £4.5 billion in a year.
Sir Anwar Pervez, 87, is very much the patriarch, and founded a retail shop in Earl’s Court, calling it Kashmir after saving enough money from an assortment of jobs, including being a bus conductor in Braford before settling into West London and starting his retail career there. He had come from Thathi, near Rawalpindi in Pakistan in 1956.
Son Dawood is now managing director Bestway Wholesale and it is Zameer Choudrey, Lord Choudrey CBE, who is CEO of the whole group and is Sir Anwar’s nephew. All the six board of directors are related to Sir Anwar and are family.
Starting off as a chain of convenience stores in 1963, Bestway Group has grown to become a diversified multinational business with interests across the wholesale, pharmacy, real estate, cement and banking sectors. Today, the conglomerate serves over 12 million customers and employs over 28,000 individuals across the UK, Pakistan and the Middle East.
Recently, they acquired a 3.45 per cent stake in Sainsbury’s, the second largest supermarket chain in the UK, adding that it may look to buy more. Though Bestway confirmed that they are not making an offer for Sainsbury’s, the move has prompted speculation, especially after the buyout of no.4 grocer Morrisons by US private equity firm Clayton, Dubilier & Rice and the takeover of Asda, the third largest supermarket, by Mohsin and Zuber Issa and private equity firm TDR Capital in 2021.
In fact, the group has been steadily increasing its retail footprint with acquisitions, of Conviviality plc in 2018, owners of Bargain Booze, Wine Rack and Central Convenience symbol retail brands, and Costcutter Supermarkets Group in 2021. The acquisitions, along with its own best-one symbol group, placed Bestway at the forefront of independent UK retail, creating a symbol, franchise, and company store retail estate incorporating nearly 3,800 stores.
Part of the group’s success has been its support and promotion of the independent retail grocery and small shops sector since its move away from the frontline of retail.
The late 1960s and early 1970s was a period of modernisation and change in UK grocery, with many of the small supermarket chains being gobbled up by the emerging giants we know today. Wholesale margins at the time were high, 10-12 per cent, retail profits were wafer-thin, and it seemed as if grocery stores could survive only by scaling up – or moving out and up the chain and away from frontline retail.
Sir Anwar had 11 shops by the time he opened his first cash and carry in Acton in 1976. He had the insight that he could supply the sector he knew very well, leveraging an influence with ethnic-food stores in the first instance, a lot more cheaply than existing wholesalers.
Sir Anwar’s ‘revolutionary’ act was to slash his wholesale margin to around three per cent, with the confidence that he could still make a profit by knowing his market and being super-efficient. When the Acton depot opened its doors in 1976, the pricing worked, and it was a runaway success.
Based today at Park Royal, in west London, a ten-minute drive from their first location in Acton, Bestway Wholesale is now the UK’s largest independent wholesaler, with 56 Bestway and Batleys depots spanning the length and breadth of the UK, supplying to independent retailers and catering and foodservice operators.
By the 90s, the group started to look at diversification. The first major move was into rice milling. The next diversification was truly different, though: cement manufacture in Pakistan.
Banking followed in Pakistan, enabling millions of people to be hooked up to the financial system for the first time, allowing credit for investment, security and prosperity. Both United Bank Limited and Bestway Cement are second largest firms in their sectors respectively in Pakistan.
It’s clear that Bestway is not afraid of diversifying into new lines of business as 2014 saw the company enter into the pharmacy business with the acquisition of Co-op Pharmacy, now branded Well Pharmacy, the third largest pharmacy chain in the UK.
The charitable works began off the back of Bestway’s success. In 1987 Bestway Foundation UK was established and a sister organisation in Pakistan a decade later. The foundation, which is funded out of the profits of Bestway Group, has donated more than $46 million (£37m) to notable causes since its formation. It operates both in the UK and Pakistan, focussing predominantly in education and healthcare sectors.
Last year, when unprecedented monsoon rains lashed Pakistan, Bestway Group has been at the forefront of the efforts to support the victims of the devastating floods, thought to be the worst natural disaster to hit the country in recent memory.
The group has raised over $2.5m (£2m) through its Pakistan Flood Relief Appeal, and the Bestway Foundation has overseen the distribution of ration bags, blankets, mosquito nets and water filtration units to over 20,000 families in the worst affected areas of southern Pakistan provinces of Baluchistan and Sindh.
“It’s not just about the short-term relief – we are also looking at how we can help in the longer term as Pakistan looks to rebuild its infrastructure and livelihoods which have all been destroyed,” Dawood Pervez said.
“As a company which has retained its heritage and links to Pakistan to this day, we want to do all we can to support the recovery efforts and help those that need help the most.”
His services to the business and philanthropy have been recognised by the UK government with an OBE in 1992, and then a knighthood in 1999. In the following year, he was awarded Hilal-i-Pakistan (Crescent of Pakistan), the second-highest civil award by the Pakistani government.
Choudrey was made a CBE in 2016, and received Sitara-i-Imtiaz (Star of Excellence) honour from Pakistan two years later. He was nominated for a life peerage in 2019. Dawood, a vocal champion of independent wholesalers and retailers, currently serves as the chairman of Federation of Wholesale Distributors, the trade association of the UK food and drink wholesalers.
