ZAKI'S INTRICATE WEAVE.

• Author: Mildenberg, David

I hope everyone had a great summer. A highlight of mine was spending an hour in early August with High Points Zaki Uddin Khalifa, owner of a prominent Oriental rug distributorship closing soon.

Zaki is proof that North Carolina meets CNBC's criteria as the nation's best state for business. He arrived in the United States on July 4, 1976, a historic day. While he hails from a prominent Pakistani family, his homeland permitted emigrants to take out no more than $500.

He hoped to set up shop in New York but concluded that everything cost too much there. He changed his focus to North Carolina, lured by High Point University Professor Carl Wheeless, who as a missionary taught at Zakis Methodist-sponsored school in Lahore, Pakistan.

Moving from a city of 12 million people to High Point was a culture shock for the 31-year-old Muslim. But the furniture industry hotbed was the right place, thanks to the Wheeless family and High Point Bank President Fred Alexander, who lent to Zaki. His first property loan was paid back in fewer than three years.

Zaki started with 40 rugs in 1977. When he moved into his current warehouse in 1999, he had 16,000. He has sold rugs ranging in price from less than $500 to half a million bucks. Elite designers, Hollywood stars and New York finance tycoons know Zaki.

We visited to discuss the sale of his 100,000-square-foot warehouse to Homelegance, a Fremont, Calif.-based furniture distributor with 10 sites in the U.S. and Canada. In 1977, High Point had 2 million square feet of furniture showrooms. It now has 12 million.

News of his departure isn't new; in 2018, he told Business North Carolina that he would sell the building in five years, then donate proceeds to Akhuwat, a Pakistani nonprofit that provides interest-free microloans and free grade-school education. Beyond his age, he says the sale is motivated by the declining quality of his product. Few people in developing nations have the economic need or patience to spend a year or more weaving an intricate rug.

His goal...