Dawn Media Group

Founded in 1947, it is currently based in Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan. Hameed Haroon is CEO.

Daily Dawn is a privately owned English-language newspaper in Pakistan. It is owned by Herald Publications Limited, which in turn is owned by two other firms, the privately owned Haroon Sons Limited and the privately owned Pyramid Media Limited. The former owns 4.14 percent of the shares in Pakistan Herald Publications Limited and the latter own 85.71 percent.

The paper began as a weekly and became a daily in 1944. Dawn was launched in British India in 1941 and is now the largest English newspaper in Pakistan; it is widely considered the country's newspaper of record. Its first editor was Pothan Joseph, a Christian from Travancore (now the India state of Kerala) in British India.

The Karachi-based group is owned by the powerful Haroon and Saigol families. The CEO is Hameed Haroon, and its chairman is Amber Haroon Saigol, daughter of the previous chairman Mahmoud Haroon. He was the 11th richest individual in Pakistan in 1993.

Pakistan Herald Publications Limited is part of a private business conglomerate, Dawn Media Group.

Dawn was published from Delhi a few weeks after August 14, 1947, when Pakistan became an independent country. Later that year, it moved its office to Karachi, the new state’s capital. Ownership of Dawn also changed hands around that time, from Muhammed Ali Jinnah, leader of the Muslim League political organization in Pakistan, to the family of Haji Sir Abdullah Haroon, who had purchased majority shares in it in 1946. 

Pakistan Herald Publications came about as a result of a legal dispute over the ownership of Dawn. This happened after its founder, Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, died in 1948. His sister Fatima Jinnah, claimed ownership, as did Muhummad Ali Jenna’s his party the Muslim League, and the government of Pakistan.

Also claiming ownership were the heirs of Haji Abdullah Haroon, who was the biggest investor in the trust that ran the newspaper. About 18 months after Jinnah’s death, the dispute became so intense that Haji Abdullah Haroon’s family decided to stop the publication of daily Dawn. Instead, they set up Pakistan Herald Publications Limited as a private company and started another daily newspaper, Herald.