Ibn Sina washes its hands of Islami Bank

Ibn Sina Trust, one of the sponsor shareholders of Islami Bank Bangladesh, is set to sell off its entire 2.24 percent stake in the bank within the next 30 days.

The trust will sell 3.60 crore shares through block markets of the Dhaka Stock Exchange and the Chittagong Stock Exchange at the prevailing market price, it said in a posting on the DSE website on Thursday.

On Thursday, IBBL shares traded at Tk 26.1, meaning the sales will fetch Tk 94.16 crore for the corporate sponsor.

Ibn Sina's exit from the country's biggest private lender comes less than a fortnight after IBBL Chairman Arastoo Khan resigned.

The former secretary stepped down on April 17 and was replaced by Md Nazmul Hasan, a professor of the University of Dhaka.

Ibn Sina left the bank's board on January 5 this year after a huge reshuffle.

Khan was appointed chairman in place of Mustafa Anwar. The then managing director and vice-chairman also resigned.

Last year, the Islamic Development Bank, one of the foreign investors of IBBL, sold two-thirds of its shares, bringing its stake in the bank down to 2 percent from 7.5 percent.

In 2014, foreign sponsor-shareholder Bahrain Islamic Bank sold off all of its shares and Dubai Islamic Bank followed suit in 2015.