Local group to buy Peregrine's Bangladesh operations

A group of local businessmen have reached an agreement with the Hong Kong-based Peregrine Capital Ltd to take over its Bangladesh operations, it was announced yesterday. The deal, reportedly worth Tk five crore, launching a new company called Union Capital Limited, will merge the Peregrine operations and the SES Company Ltd, a brokerage firm known to have been owned by Peregrine. SES has membership on both bourses in Bangladesh.

A total of 10 local entrepreneurs who include former bureaucrat Enam Ahmed Chowdhury, garment tycoon Nurul Huq Sikder and insurance magnet Nasir Chowdhury have also agreed to "keep the management structure intact", sources close to them said. The proposed company has already applied for licence as a non-banking financial institution.

Runa Alam, Peregrine CEO in Bangladesh, will retain her position in the new company. Enam Ahmed Chowdhury, a former ERD secretary and until recently the vice-president of the Jeddah-based Islamic Development Bank (IDB), will be the chairman.

"The directors of Peregrine Capital Limited have approved the transaction leading to a complete takeover by a group of investors with the authorisation of the liquidator of Peregrine Investment Holdings Limited," the company announced in a press statement yesterday.

"Union Capital Limited will carry on the business of investment banking and asset management with particular concentration on infrastructure financing, corporate finance, investment trading, sales and brokerage, project finance, private equity and lease financing. It will also undertake research and advisory activities," the announcement said. The buy-out deal of the Bangladesh business and undertakings of Peregrine Capital Limited ends speculation about the collapse of the investment bank, whose Hong Kong and Chinese operations have been bought by a French bank and another partner.