Shahid Khan

Shahid Khan (Urdu: شاہد خان‎; born July 18, 1950), also known as Shad Khan, is a Pakistani-American billionaire and business tycoon. He is the owner of the Jacksonville Jaguars of the National Football League (NFL), the English Football League Championship team Fulham F.C., and automobile parts manufacturer Flex-N-Gate in Urbana, Illinois.
Khan was featured on the front cover of Forbes magazine in 2012, associating him as the face of the American Dream. As of September 2016, Khan's net worth is over $6.9 billion. He is ranked 84th in the Forbes 400 list of richest Americans and is overall the 360th wealthiest person in the world. He is the richest person of Pakistani origin.

Khan was born in Lahore, Pakistan, to a middle-class family who were involved in the construction industry. His mother (now retired) was a professor of mathematics. He moved to the United States in 1967 at age 16 to study at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. When he came to the United States, he spent his first night in a $2/night room at the University Y-YMCA, and his first job was washing dishes for $1.20 an hour. He joined the Beta Theta Pi fraternity at the school. He graduated from the UIUC College of Engineering with a BSc in Mechanical Engineering in 1971. He later was awarded the Mechanical Science and Engineering Distinguished Alumni Award in 1999. Khan became a US citizen in 1991. He is Muslim.

Khan worked at the automotive manufacturing company Flex-N-Gate while attending the University of Illinois. When he graduated he was hired as the engineering director for the company. In 1978, he started Bumper Works, which made car bumpers for customized pickup trucks and body shop repairs. The transaction involved a $50,000 loan from the Small Business Administration and $16,000 in his savings.

In 1980 he bought Flex-N-Gate from his former employer Charles Gleason Butzow, bringing Bumper Works into the fold. Khan grew the company so that it supplied bumpers for the Big Three automakers. In 1984 he began supplying a small number of bumpers for Toyota pickups. By 1987 it was the sole supplier for Toyota pickups and by 1989 it was the sole supplier for the entire Toyota line in the United States. Adopting The Toyota Way increased company efficiency and ability to change its manufacturing process within a few minutes. Since then the company has grown from $17 million in sales to an estimated $2 billion in 2010.

By 2011, Flex-N-Gate had 12,450 employees and 48 manufacturing plants in the United States and several other countries, and took in $3 billion in revenue.

In May 2012, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration fined Flex-N-Gate $57,000 for health violations at its Urbana plant.

Khan in 2012

Khan's first attempt to purchase a National Football League team came in February 11, 2010, when he entered into an agreement to acquire 60% of the St. Louis Rams from Chip Rosenbloom and Lucia Rodriguez, subject to approval by other NFL owners. However, Stan Kroenke, the minority shareholder of the Rams, ultimately exercised a clause in his ownership agreement to match any proposed bid.

On November 29, 2011, Khan agreed to purchase the Jacksonville Jaguars from Wayne Weaver and his ownership group subject to NFL approval. Weaver announced his sale of the team to Khan later that same day. The terms of the deal were not immediately disclosed, other than a verbal commitment to keep the team in Jacksonville, Florida. The sale was finalized on January 4, 2012. The purchase price for 100% share in the Jaguars was estimated to have been $760 million. The NFL owners unanimously approved the purchase on December 14, 2011. The sale made Khan the first member of an ethnic minority to own an NFL team.

Khan is a board member of the NFL Foundation.

In July 2013, Khan negotiated the purchase of the London soccer club Fulham of the Premier League from its previous owner, Mohamed Al Fayed. The deal was finalized on July 12, 2013 with the amount estimated between £150–200 million. An official purchase price for the club was not announced with Khan stating that it was "highly confidential".

Khan has received a number of awards from the University of Illinois, including a Distinguished Alumnus Award in 1999 from the Department of Mechanical Science and Industrial Engineering, the Alumni Award for Distinguished Service in 2006 from the College of Engineering, and (with his wife, Ann) the Distinguished Service Award in 2005 from the University of Illinois Alumni Association.