SUCCESS STORY OF AN AMERICAN WHO STARTED HIS LIFE IN THE UNITED STATES AS A FOREIGN STUDENT

(Second Quarter April- June 2010)

In the Name of Allah, the Most Beneficent and the Most Merciful

It looks like Steven Jackson and the St. Louis Rams will have a new owner: Illinois businessman

SHAHID KHAN

WHO ARE RAMS ?

The St. Louis Rams are a professional American football team based in St. Louis, Missouri. They are currently members of the Western Division of the National Football Conference (NFC) in the National Football League (NFL). The team has won three NFL Championships, including one Super Bowl. (wikipedia.org)

Keith Null #9 of the St. Louis Rams reacts to fumbling a snap against the Houston Texans at the Edward Jones Dome on December 20, 2009 in St. Louis, Missouri. December 19, 2009 - Photo by Dilip Vishwanat/Getty Images North America. (zimbio.com)

RAMS

Cheerleaders Complete Afghan Tour

Sep 18th, 2009 by Chuck Simmins

www.northshoreournal.org

U.S. Army 1st Lt. Natalie Cahill, from Sault Ste Marie, Mich., poses for a photograph with St. Louis Rams cheerleaders at Camp As Sayliyah, Qatar, Sept. 16. Five Rams cheerleaders completed an eight-day tour of U.S. military installations in Afghanistan, where they met troops, signed autographs and provided evening shows. The Qatar base hosted the expeditionary entertainment group's final performance in Southwest Asia. Photo by Dustin Senger

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It looks like Steven Jackson and the St. Louis Rams will have a new owner: Illinois businessman Shahid Khan. (www.stlouisrams.com) ) cbs.news.com

(...Some experts have said a more realistic sale price will be closer to $750 million...Huffington Post)

RAMS: HIS (SHAHID KHAN'S) LATEST CONQUEST ?

(condensed version)

news-gazeette.com

Feb 12, 2010
Don Dodson

URBANA, Illinois – It seems only appropriate that a man who made his fortune in bumpers would buy a team called the Rams.

Shahid Khan, the 55-year-old President of Urbana-based auto parts manufacturer Flex-N-Gate Corp., has a tentative agreement to buy a 60 percent stake in the St. Louis football team, according to announcements Thursday.

The deal must be approved by a 75 percent vote of NFL owners.

Khan's purchase of the team is the latest venture in a string of expansions that date back more than 30 years. And he is a man who has a history of taking the next step, even if the step isn't easy.

In his early days of making bumpers, Khan found it tough to sell to the Big Three automakers, so he went to the Japanese.

He soon supplied virtually all the Japanese truck manufacturers, and by the 1990s, he was supplying their American counterparts.

Today, Flex-N-Gate Corp. employs more than 9,500 people at 57 facilities in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Argentina and Spain, according to the company's Web site. That's down from 13,000 a few years ago.

Its products have extended far beyond bumpers. Over the years, its lines grew to include exterior components, grilles, jacks for changing tires, hinges, latches and mechanical parts – and more recently, parking brakes and pedals.

Khan, a native of Pakistan, came to the United States in 1967, and graduated from the University of Illinois with an engineering degree.

While in school, he worked for Flex-N-Gate, but in 1978, he started his own business. He ended up acquiring Flex-N-Gate and operating it as a sister company to his Bumper Works plant in Danville. Later, he opened the Master Guard plant near Veedersburg, Ind., and the Guardian West plant in Urbana.

And the growth kept coming, unrestricted by national boundaries.

By 2008, Flex-N-Gate was ranked by Forbes magazine as the 155th largest private company in the United States, with $2.72 billion in revenues for the previous fiscal year. Last year, it fell to 229th place in the ranking, with revenues of $2.14 billion.

Not only has Khan acquired companies and facilities throughout the world, but he has also made acquisitions locally.

In 2003, he acquired a controlling interest in Flightstar, the aviation service company based at Willard. One reason: Flex-N-Gate was using Flightstar services a lot in travel to distant facilities.

In 2008, Khan took over operation of the Urbana Golf & Country Club facilities.

In a 1987 interview with The News-Gazette, Khan explained how he was able to sell to the Japanese, even though he couldn't crack the U.S. automakers at that time.

"The simple reason was that the Japanese didn't have ties with U.S. (bumper) firms. They bought simply on product and pricing," he said. By contrast, "the U.S. industry had (supplier) ties that go back to the horse-and-buggy days," he said. "Those are hard to shake."

Khan's selling point was his bumper design: a light, continuous piece of metal with no seams where corrosion and rust could start.

By 1992, he was making bumpers for Ford and Dodge trucks but still hadn't snagged General Motors as a client. But in time, GM, Volkswagen and BMW would eventually enter the fold.

In 2000, Khan delivered a lecture at the UI in which he called himself a "contrarian thinker" in making business decisions.

His advice: play to competitors' weaknesses, make strategic alliances to maximize your strength and keep information to yourself.

He continued to follow that last piece of advice – perhaps to his detriment last year.

Stan Kroenke, a billionaire from Columbia, Mo., owns the remaining 40 percent of the Rams franchise.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.