File PhotoFIL Industries Limited, a diversified company into manufacturing and businesses of agro-chemicals, agro-infrastructure and Food and Beverage (F&B) has been a popular name in and outside Kashmir for a long time. Since its inception, the company has been operating in a variety of industries, introducing the market to newer, better and modern products.

With young brothers, Junaid and Owais, taking leadership role of the company, FIL with interests in agriculture, food and beverage, infrastructure development and hospitality has been working towards providing more and more innovative products to consumers.

While older brother Syed Junaid Altaf, 33, is responsible for financial strategy and business development at FIL, younger brother Syed Owais Altaf, 29, is handling new business development and strategic relationships.

Having worked in the banking industry with HSBC for a period of five years, it was a homecoming for Owais earlier this year to become a part of FIL Industries, as its director. Owais holds an MSc Strategic Management from Cass Business School, London and is an alumnus of University of Bristol (UK) and The Doon School.

“Now-a-days I shuttle between Kashmir and abroad but in days to come I want to focus more on being present in Kashmir. From controlled atmospheric storage to now offering a range of F&B products, FIL Industries is an end-to-end company and I look forward contributing more to it,” says Owais.

In an attempt to being a pioneer in the F&B market, FIL Industries Limited has recently introduced Acute Fruit Energizer, the first fruit energizer in India. The fruit energizer was launched at an impressive event at a luxury hotel on Saturday. Developed in collaboration with Monarch Beverages (France), Acute Fruit Energizer is a part of the new generation of healthier alternative beverages, which with help of unique energizing formula, offers a sustained energy boost.

Junaid who is Executive Director at FIL Industries Limited says the fruit energizer will be launched across all the states after February, 2018.

“We have been eagerly working to first launch this product in Kashmir and then in rest of states after February 2018. Maintaining originality of brands is our focus while we are also planning to tie-up with specialized retail chains for the fruit energizer,” says Junaid.

Junaid has also been a part of the mergers and acquisitions team of CIBC World Markets, New York (acquired by Oppenheimer and Company in January 2008) where he worked on several marquee transactions across the consumer, healthcare, industrial and financial service sectors.  This young turk is upbeat regarding ‘Acute Fruit Energizer’ and has several plans in the pipeline which also includes using the deionised apple concentrate in their products. “A lot of R&D has gone into this product. It is an alternative for sugar and is basically an extraction of natural sugar of apple. We are focusing a lot on the scientific side of the F&B products and want to provide healthier beverage options to consumers,” says Junaid.

For Owais being back home has been an altogether new experience. During his tenure with HSBC, he was part of the risk management, corporate banking and treasury departments in Hong Kong, London and Dubai. Of late Owais has been pivotal in the diversification of the FIL Group business in the Middle East and Africa, where he has led the development of the institutional hospitality and global trade business. Owais like his brother is keen that Acute Fruit Energizer makes an impactful entry into the market.

“Acute Fruit Energizer is a premier innovative product but priced in a very competitive manner. It’s a locally manufactured product with a global R&D. We are all set with a TV commercial focusing how this product is a fusion between a juice and an energy drink which is non-carbonated,” says Owais.

Junaid’s experience of working at UBS Financial Services, New York where he was involved with the High Yield Securities Group is another feather in his hat.  A stint at American Express Bank, New Delhi where he worked in the Financial Institutions Group and Foreign Exchange Treasury are also blue chip additions to Junaid’s impressive carrier graph. The young Executive Director has led the diversification of FIL into the geriatric healthcare and tourism infrastructure business. Having secured an MSc in Risk Management and Financial Engineering from Imperial College London, Junaid is an alumnus of Washington University, St. Stephen’s College (Delhi University), and The Doon School (Dehradun).

Both Junaid and Owais have been working on inventions that seek to systematically serve the whole of the market, traders and consumers alike. The duo along with team FIL Industries Limited continues to do so relentlessly to emerge as a name to reckon with on a global level.

[“Source-greaterkashmir”]