Regulator opens probe into junk companies' price hike

Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday formed a two-member panel to investigate the unusual hike in share prices of seven Z-category companies recently.

The companies are: Fine Foods, BD Autocars, Meghna Pet Industries, Meghna Condensed Milk Industries, Zeal Bangla Sugar Mills, Imam Button Industries and Shaympur Sugar Mills.

The stockmarket watchdog at a meeting asked the panel, which comprises BSEC's Deputy Director Md Golam Kibria and Assistant Director Mohammad Rakibur Rahman, to file the probe report at the earliest.

Companies that are not in operation or do not hold annual general meetings and do not pay dividends regularly are traded under the stock exchanges' Z-category, which is considered a platform for junk companies.

The BSEC also allowed Golden Harvest Agro Industries to raise Tk 50 crore by issuing redeemable non-convertible corporate bonds to meet its capital requirement for business expansion. The bonds will have a maturity period of seven years.

The face value of the bond, which can be issued to only financial institutions and high-net-worth individual investors through private placement, will be Tk 1 crore per unit.

Also at yesterday's meeting, which was presided over by BSEC Chairman M Khairul Hossain, it was decided that National Polymar Industries will be fined Tk 5 lakh for breaching securities rules.

Earlier, a regulatory probe found that shares from a single account of Shamsul Abedin Akand, a sponsor of National Polymar, were transferred to a joint account without his permission in 2008.

But the company gave wrong information to the commission during its listing, and another sponsor of the firm, Khaleda Akand, also did not co-operate with the regulatory probe panel in this regard.

The Dhaka Stock Exchange also failed to provide necessary documents regarding the transfer of shares to the probe panel during investigation.

Apart from warning the premier bourse, the BSEC also imposed a Tk 1 lakh fine on Khaleda Akand.