Jalal Husni Bey is far from giving up on Libya.

Jalal Husni Bey has something missing. Something you would really expect to see in someone with such a dramatic past.

He has not a shred of vengeance in him against Gaddafi, even though the slain Libyan dictator systematically harassed him, his family and their businesses for decades.

Mr Bey shrugged and smiled.

“That is one of my beliefs in life. Vengeance is a negative energy. Why should I allow it to drain my energy?” he said.

Whether this really is the secret to his unquenchable energy or not, there is no denying his achievements in Libya, where he helps to run dozens of companies belonging to the HB Group. Or in Malta, where he saved Metropolis from undercapitalised inertia and is already looking to other possible ventures including the Gżira marina. He is far from giving up on Libya, in spite of the challenges there that stubbornly defy resolution. These include a banking sector with very few products on offer and a lacklustre response to the Stock Exchange.

“The banks are involved in practices which are simply bad. They would never get away with it in other jurisdictions and the Libyan Central Bank has very little control,” he claimed with the frankness that seems to be a common trait in many of his nine siblings.

“The banks inherited bad habits from the days when orders were given by phone... It will take time to sort things out. And they also need investment in IT, security, power supply... At least the will is there.”

Another sector that requires reform is the land registry, he explained.

“The records need to be automated. As it is now, if you buy property you can never be sure of ownership. And it does not help that there is a lot of wrongdoing and files are disappearing rapidly. This is all self-inflicted damage which will hold the country back,” he said.

One sector that had been in the group’s sights was tourism, and the immediate success of opening the country up to visitors anxious to visit its cultural sites encourages the group to keep it on the list of “things to do”.

“We have a long season, beautiful desert, pristine beaches and historic sites. That Libya will be a tourism destination is not an ‘if’ but a ‘when’,” he said.

However, he is well aware that the current ban on alcohol will deter non-Muslims.

“If we are serious about developing tourism, we have to find a way to be able to sell alcohol to non-Muslims and non-Libyans,” he said.

Of course, how his ideas and criticism are received in present-day Libya will determine whether the fall of the Gaddafi regime really will usher in a new era or whether it will remain mired in the mistakes of the past.

HB Group: from pariahs to role models

The Bey family certainly never held back when the dictator was in power, even though it would clearly have been the more sensible thing to do.

To understand where they are now, you have to go back to 1952, when the group was founded to import and distribute household goods by the Turkish-born grandfather.

It now has diversified interests ranging from import-export and shipping to tourism and bonded warehouse services for the oil industry. The group handles some of the largest retailing names in Libya, including Procter and Gamble, Sony and Marks & Spencer, but it is also involved in pharmaceuticals, manufacturing and commodities. It is considered to be “the premier private holding company in Libya” according to the group website.

But the journey has been long and arduous. When Gaddafi came to power in 1969, the profitable HB Group was in his sights and the company was nationalised in the 1970s. The family lost everything overnight, and scattered across Europe. They only returned in 1986, gradually building up the group. Jalil’s brother Husni, the chairman of the company, was imprisoned three times in the 1990s – but never found guilty. This did not, however, stop the regime from freezing the family assets again.

Husni Husni Bey was an outspoken critic and led a constant struggle with the Gaddafi regime to modernise and open the country to fair, international trade and commerce. On one memorable occasion, as the vice president of the Libyan Business Council, he stood on a podium by the Prime Minister Al Baghdadi al Mahmoudi and criticised him during the televised meeting. Two weeks later, he was in prison for the third time.

According to a company spokesman, just prior to the revolution, the Prime Minister actually wrote a personal letter to Husni apologising for the way he and the Bey family, had been unfairly targeted for a number of years.

“They wanted the Husni Bey story of international fair trade, commerce, long-lasting relationships, openness and anticorruption to be a model for the commercial development of the country and its stifled private sector,” he said.

While Husni was promoting this development and defending the businesses from within Libya, Jalal was busy promoting the development of the business from an international perspective.