Deb­bie Ja­cob

In the king­dom of cloth, the late Jim­my Aboud reigned supreme. This year marked the 65th an­niver­sary of Aboud's tex­tile busi­ness. He sur­vived dan­ger­ous dips in the econ­o­my and po­lit­i­cal coup at­tempts. He thrived in a volatile busi­ness that un­rav­eled some of his most fierce com­peti­tors. Jim­my Aboud the Tex­tile King per­se­vered to be­come one of the lead­ing en­tre­pre­neurs in the Caribbean.

Some time af­ter his 60th an­niver­sary in busi­ness, Aboud spoke about his life in the tex­tile busi­ness, but he was hes­i­tant to make the sto­ry pub­lic.

"I don't think it's the right time yet," he kept telling me.

I care­ful­ly guard­ed this sto­ry giv­en to me by Aboud in his of­fice at his store, so it was nev­er pub­lished un­til now.

Jim­my Aboud start­ed off like many Syr­i­an busi­ness­men. In 1942, he packed his suit­case full of cloth and sundry items, paid his ten-cent fare, and at 6.30 am, trav­elled east by train with his fa­ther through the coun­try­side to sell in the bar­racks of the sug­ar­cane es­tates. They took the last train back to Port-of-Spain at 5.50 pm in the evening.

"I learned much from my pre­de­ces­sors–my un­cle and my fa­ther. I fol­lowed the steps of oth­ers, and I al­ways tried to ex­cel," said Aboud.

But he want­ed to own his own store.

"I still re­mem­ber that day I walked in the bank to start my busi­ness," said Aboud. "It was 1949 and I had been work­ing in Char­lotte Street for six months. I need­ed a loan to start a busi­ness. I put on my coat and hat and tie. In those days every­body walked the streets in a suit."

At the bank, Aboud se­cured an over­draft cred­it of $500. He was 22 years old, am­bi­tious and de­ter­mined to suc­ceed.

"In that pe­ri­od, busi­ness was very com­pet­i­tive–es­pe­cial­ly among the es­tab­lished firms. On­ly hard-work­ing peo­ple sur­vived. Wages were five shillings a week. Cheap cot­tons were 35 cents. When you crossed $1,000 a day for sales, you did very well."

Get­ting his own store was a dream come true. And then came the Ko­re­an War in 1951. The post-World War II ten­sion be­tween the com­mu­nist world and the de­mo­c­ra­t­ic west had come to a show­down in Ko­rea.

"I had the ex­pe­ri­ence of sell­ing dur­ing World War II when goods were scarce. This war, I thought, would bring the same con­di­tions."

Aboud bought cloth in bulk. He need­ed to have stock for what he thought would be a long war. But six months lat­er, a treaty was signed. The Ko­re­an War end­ed.

"I was in­volved in over­buy­ing," Aboud said with a frown. "I got car­ried away–not on­ly me, but most of the traders. The goods ar­rived; there was no mar­ket to trade, no room to stock­pile. I didn't have the mon­ey to clear the goods and the port threat­ened to auc­tion what wasn't cleared. Many peo­ple went bank­rupt."

Am­bi­tious Aboud had to break the news of his near demise to his fam­i­ly.

"They said, 'You are crazy, man. You brought down so much goods?'"

But Aboud's fam­i­ly stood be­side him.

"I was saved by ad­di­tion­al fi­nance from fam­i­ly mem­bers ex­tend­ing me cred­it. Dur­ing that pe­ri­od I had to work longer hours, night in­to day, sell­ing goods at low mar­gins–even at a loss–to pay back my fam­i­ly."

The hard worked paid off.

"There­after I learned my les­son. I was the most cau­tious buy­er."

It was dur­ing this time, Aboud said, that he earned his ti­tle.

"The peo­ple be­stowed up­on me the ti­tle of Tex­tile King be­cause of my choice and taste in fab­ric."

It is a gift, he said, he al­ways had, be­ing able to pre­dict colours and trends in de­signs.

"I had a knack for de­signs and my prices were far ahead of my com­peti­tors."

Still, Aboud's com­peti­tors scoffed at his ti­tle.

"They ridiculed me and said, 'A tex­tile king? What kind of a king is that?'"

That didn't de­ter him. He was too busy stay­ing ahead of the com­pe­ti­tion. These were the days when the cloth busi­ness de­pend­ed on pick­ing and choos­ing from agents who brought sam­ples to the stores. Cloth mer­chants like Aboud didn't trav­el abroad to buy cloth.

By 1956, Aboud had re­cov­ered fi­nan­cial­ly. Trinidad seemed to be sewing up a storm. Busi­ness boomed.

"I ac­quired a rental in the Sal­va­tori Build­ing on the cor­ner of In­de­pen­dence and Hen­ry Street. This was a big achieve­ment. Most of my com­peti­tors were sur­prised be­cause I had start­ed small on Char­lotte Street. They were sur­prised and jeal­ous."

Then, dis­as­ter struck once again.

"All my joys were shat­tered af­ter six months. I lost the busi­ness in the Sal­va­tori fire. The whole block burned in 1956. I had to start all over again.

"The one con­so­la­tion I had came from a priest, Fr To­ber, who was head of CIC. He said to me, 'God took your busi­ness away and what he takes away he gives back ten­fold.' That in­spired me to get up and get."

Soon, Aboud moved his busi­ness to low­er Hen­ry Street, up­stairs in the Ghany Build­ing.

"I got a boost in trade with the Venezue­lans, who were very ac­tive and vi­brant in com­ing to buy goods that they took back to South Amer­i­ca. I had a good pull there."

And then came the day in 1956 that changed Jim­my Aboud's life. An es­tate agent told him a prop­er­ty on the cor­ner of Queen and Hen­ry Street was va­cant. Aboud paid $200,000 for the prop­er­ty where his king­dom now stands.

"Most of the traders around there, and my fam­i­ly,ere so up­set and an­gry. They thought it was a fool­ish mis­take, and I had over­paid for the prop­er­ty. Once again, my busi­ness as­so­ciates said I was crazy."

Aboud shrugged off the crit­i­cism. All he could think about was that this was the first busi­ness place that he had owned. He set about re­mod­el­ling and im­prov­ing the build­ing, which had a rum shop in the front. In the back were sta­tions for hors­es to drink wa­ter. The build­ing dat­ed back to the days when hors­es were the mode of trans­porta­tion in Port-of-Spain.

Jim­my Aboud claimed his throne, but most of the time–even in­to his 80s–he spent his days stand­ing next to the cash reg­is­ter where he doled out dis­counts to his loy­al sub­jects. In 65 years of busi­ness, he saw it all.

"The 60s were good years, peo­ple had man­ners. They were hum­ble and treat­ed each oth­er with re­spect. The 70s was the Black Pow­er Move­ment, but my store was left alone in the march­es.

"The 80s were a lit­tle rough."

He had be­gun ex­port­ing cloth through­out the Caribbean. Dur­ing the 80s the old method of buy­ing cloth from agents fad­ed out.

"We had to do more re­search and trav­el to mills abroad. I trav­elled all over the world–Japan, Ko­rea, In­done­sia, Malaysia, Tai­wan, Italy and be­yond–in search of cloth."

Even in­to his 80s je trav­elled to buy cloth once a year.

His last set­back in busi­ness was the 1990 coup at­tempt by Mus­limeen leader Imam Yasin Abu Bakr

"We suf­fered. The busi­ness was ran­sacked–there was more stock on the road than in­side the build­ing.

"But by the grace of God we were one of the few busi­ness places in Port-of-Spain not de­stroyed by fire."

If he had to do it all again, Aboud had said he would still choose the same busi­ness.

"I like cloth," said Aboud with­out hes­i­ta­tion. "Cloth gives you life. It is colour, de­sign, tex­ture. Things like fur­ni­ture, these things are dead to the mind. Cloth is every­thing."

And that is why, in the king­dom of cloth, Jim­my Aboud was the tex­tile king.