Habib Group was established in 1947 by Habib Ullah Mia as Habib Trading, a consumer goods trading company.[3] It was inherited by his three sons, Mahbub Ali, Yakub Ali, and Yasin Ali, in 1981 who expanded the business in other areas such as garments.[3][4]
In 2009, Habib Group sponsored the Port City League Twenty20 championship in Chittagong.[5] Regent Power Limited launched a 24 megawatt powerplant in Sitakunda Upazila in May.[6]
In 2010, Habib Group launched Regent Airways.[4] Mashruf Habib was the managing director of Regent Airways and Imran Asif was the chief executive officer.[7] Salman Habib was the deputy managing director.[8] Its first route was Dhaka to Chittagong and it started with two De Havilland Canada Dash 8.[7] Habib Group had a turnover of 20 billion BDT a year.[9]
The Daily Star-DHL awarded Habib Group the Enterprise of the Year award in 2014.[10] The International Finance Corporation invested 20.2 million USD in Regent Energy & Power Limited in April to build a powerplant in Ghorashal.[11] In November, Regent Group announced a 8 billion BDT expansion plan through the purchase of five aircraft for international routes.[12]
Regent Textiles announced plans to build two new factories at an investment of 1.79 billion BDT in November 2015.[13] Habib Group had 21 thousand employees.[14]
In June 2017, Regent Airways announced plans to expand destinations in the Middle East and the purchase of three Boeing 737.[15]
In May, textile workers of Regent Textile Mills Limited protested in Chittagong demanding their unpaid wages.[19][20] The workers went on an hunger strike demanding eights months of unpaid wages following their layoff.[21] In July, the headquarters of Habib Group were vandalized.[22] In September 2022, Chattogram Financial Debt Court ordered the seizure of land owned by Habib Steel in a .9 billion BDT loan default case filed by Eastern Bank Limited.[23][24] A travel ban was imposed on five directors of the group.[25]
In January 2023, the government of Bangladesh confiscated bank accounts of Regent Airways due to unpaid dues.[26]
By April 2023, the headquarters of Habib Group appeared deserted and 31 subsidiaries of the group had closed down or were on the verge of closing down.[3] Chattogram Magistrate Magistrate issued arrest warrants against five directors of the group including chairman Yakub Ali, directors, Mashruf Habib, Salman Habib, Tanvir Habib, and Yasin Ali in August 2022 in a dishonoured cheque case filed by IDLC Finance Limited.[27] The group defaulted on 40 billion BDT worth of loans from 30 different financial institutions.[3] The directors were believed to have fled from Bangladesh.[3] The group had received numerous unsecured loans including a 3.6 billion loan from Dhaka Bank whose director was related to a director of Habib Group.[3]
