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o did you hear the latest? People have been talking about...His Royal Crankiness! Apparently, he's become the head mafia; you know the M.D. or whatever. I thought he was one already but there you go...that was just hype. Now he's the real thing!

Our local rag trade has been going through a bit of restructuring too - whatever, you want to call it - downsizing, upsizing or rightsizing - you name it and we have done it the last few months…Omer bin Asad (Levi's) moved up one place to become the new country manager of Levi's. Khalid Tiwana, former country manager Levi's has moved to Levi's Indonesia office. Mirza Ikram Beg (AMC) has joined Naveena Sourcing. He used to head the Target Corp. merchandising team. Masooma Naufal (AMC) has finally become the sourcing manager for Target Corp. It was one long, hard struggle to reach this point. Congratulations - You deserve all the credit and success! Her husband Naufal left Leisure to start up on his own again. Warnaco's Tehmina has joined Matrix Sourcing's Nike team. Rizwan S. Butt (Colby Int'l) immigrated to USA. The last one to make such a move was Anila Q. Agha (Levi's); she now works for Jerell Inc. (A division of Hagger Corp.) Rifat K. Valli (Linmark) has joined Colby International to look after the Karachi operations. Asim Hashim (Li & Fung) joined Colby International to head the Kohls merchandising team. He reports to Khuram Qaiser. Sohail Mehmood (Leisure) has joined Colby Kohls team. He assists Asim Hashim. Ms. Shireen Shafiq (Matrix Sourcing) is getting married and moving to USA by the end of this year. Azfar Hassan (Matrix Sourcing) has moved back to Pakistan. Apparently, they have downsized the Dubai office--its now a ten people office--Was that downsizing or rightsizing I wonder? On top of it, there has been a massive shift in the structure of management at Matrix and ITS operations. Apparently, the shareholders have decided to go their separate ways and have divided the operations neatly between themselves-- Azfar gets to keep the Matrix Pakistan and Dubai - Nadeem Ahmed and Najeeb Rizvi get to keep the rest. Hmmmm.

Vendors have been going through some major restructuring too. Talk about an epidemic. Farooq Hayat (Sarah Textiles/Tajjar Ent.) joined Klass Textiles 2 to head the marketing and merchandising operations and then left to join Akbar Enterprises. Surprise! Surprise! Hammad Latif (Klass) has been transferred to Klass 2 to head the merchandising dept.

First it was Sarah - now its Ammar. What is this? Some kind of wild rampage? Moiz Farooq (Ammar Textiles) has also kissed good-bye his marketing position at Ammar Textiles. Apparently, his boss had different ideas on how to run the merchandising dept. The boss is always right Moiz! Humera Ali (Sarah Textiles) had moved to Islamabad right after getting married. She has moved right back to Ammar Textiles and Lahore recently. Sadia Mehmood (Sarah Textiles/Teefau) has also joined Ammar Textiles. Imran Butt (Ammar Textiles) has joined Comfort Knitwear. Uzma Anwer Shahid has joined Ammar Textiles. Chances are, more people will be leaving and joining Ammar Textiles. Stay tuned - things are on the roll here! Iftikhar Khan (Sarah Textiles) has joined Comfort Knitwear.

Nauman Nasir (AMC) got married this March. It was a tale of two cities - the wedding party drove to another city to collect the bride, and drove all the way back - only family was invited on the wedding ceremony. His Walima reception was a free for all event though. Shahid Butt (CEO Shahkam Ind.) also got married this March. Everyone had a good time.

Arif Noor (AMC) took a trip to Singapore to attend Saks Fifth Avenue Q.A Seminar. According to him Things are pretty hectic - all work and no play. He doesn't have a lot of spare time but he does make time to play with his baby boy. He is one proud papa. Speaking of proud papa, Khuram Qaiser had a baby boy - his first-born.

AMC moved their office to Liberty. I wonder how much it cost this time? Must be a lucrative business moving the office every three years. There have been many new personnel additions in the AMC staff. I don't have the details, but I do know it's apparently very hush, hush and classified - it's supposed to remain that way especially if I take an interest. Sorry. I ain't interested.

In other news, leather is hot this season. AMC has started their first leather order -Gap is another one who's buying leather by the container load. Gap has hired an entire village and NGO to look after their orders - they may think globally but they believe in working locally! Good job Zubair. That was a clever idea!

Nike opened up their flagship store in Lahore--the store is nice and trendy. They have apparel, bags, hats, watches, and of course, sport shoes. I made a beeline for their bags and sport shoes. Their inventory is showcased attractively but there was a mad crush. I will go back and buy a couple of items--a sneaker to work out in and a bag to carry all my stuff in. The mad crush is sure to die down a bit by next month at least.

Levi's also opened up their boutique in one of the premiere departmental stores of Lahore--Haji Karim Buksh. The clothes were a bit overpriced and the designs were just mediocre. They have only the men's line on display. However, there was a lot of traffic in their part of HKB.

That's it from the newsroom! See you after the break!