Shami Ahmed
Encyclopedia
Eaitisham "Shami" Ahmed is a Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
i born British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
founder of the Joe Bloggs clothing
Clothing
Clothing refers to any covering for the human body that is worn. The wearing of clothing is exclusively a human characteristic and is a feature of nearly all human societies...
brand
Brand
The American Marketing Association defines a brand as a "Name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller's good or service as distinct from those of other sellers."...
.
Born in Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
, his parents emigrated to England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
in 1964, when he was aged 2. His father Nizam started a profitable retail clothing business Ahmed Hosiery, in Burnley
Burnley
Burnley is a market town in the Burnley borough of Lancashire, England, with a population of around 73,500. It lies north of Manchester and east of Preston, at the confluence of the River Calder and River Brun....
. Nizam and Shami built up a successful wholesale business, founded in 1980 in Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
, which today trades as "The Juice Corporation". During the 1980s, Manchester was at the centre of a youth scene of music of fashion, which led to its labelling as Madchester
Madchester
Madchester was a music scene that developed in Manchester, England, towards the end of the 1980s and into the early 1990s. The music that emerged from the scene mixed alternative rock, psychedelic rock and dance music...
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Ahmed launched "The Legendary Joe Bloggs Clothing Company". It became part of the Manchester scene and was quickly successful. Bloggs was the first British company into the UK's top ten jeans brands. Shami made his first million at the age of 24.
In 2005 Shami Ahmed was involved in a fraud
Fraud
In criminal law, a fraud is an intentional deception made for personal gain or to damage another individual; the related adjective is fraudulent. The specific legal definition varies by legal jurisdiction. Fraud is a crime, and also a civil law violation...
trial brought by HM Customs and Excise
Her Majesty's Customs and Excise
HM Customs and Excise was, until April 2005, a department of the British Government in the UK. It was responsible for the collection of Value added tax , Customs Duties, Excise Duties, and other indirect taxes such as Air Passenger Duty, Climate Change Levy, Insurance Premium Tax, Landfill Tax and...
. The trial collapsed on February 1, 2005 after the prosecution failed to bring convincing evidence, clearing Mr. Ahmed of the charges; the judge awarding him the defence costs. Mr Ahmed said the decision had "vindicated" his trust in the British justice system. At that date, he was looking to take legal action against HM Customs and Excise.
As the Joe Bloggs company declined, Ahmed tried to restore his fortune through London Stock Exchange
London Stock Exchange
The London Stock Exchange is a stock exchange located in the City of London within the United Kingdom. , the Exchange had a market capitalisation of US$3.7495 trillion, making it the fourth-largest stock exchange in the world by this measurement...
spread betting
Spread betting
Spread betting is any of various types of wagering on the outcome of an event, where the pay-off is based on the accuracy of the wager, rather than a simple "win or lose" outcome, such as fixed-odds betting or parimutuel betting. A spread is a range of outcomes and the bet is whether the outcome...
mainly through Tradindex, through the losses of which he was bankrupted in April 2009.