The Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday withdrew suspension order on the Tk 220-crore initial public offering of the controversial Appollo Ispat Complex Limited.
The BSEC had suspended the IPO of the company in February this year following an intervention of finance minister AMA Muhith. The commission had approved the IPO on December 13 last year.
On Thursday, the BSEC scrapped the suspension order in a commission meeting president over by its chairman M Khairul Hossain, a BSEC release said.
The finance minister in February advised the BSEC chairman to suspend the IPO of the AICL over allegations of different irregularities.
In the letter, Muhith advised the BSEC to start immediate investigations into the interests of Appollo’s former company directors, to realise taxes from them, to get the company audited, and to probe its letters of credit to find out possible fund embezzlements.
Following a court order, after the suspension of IPO, the directors of the company transferred some shares against some shareholders who filed objection to the finance minister regarding the company, the BSEC release said.
The BSEC received opinion of the National Board of Revenue on tax matters, Credit Information Bureau report of all directors, enclosed explanation of the company on different issues and following all these things the commission made the decision, it also said.
A Bangladesh Bank report regarding the AICL which was sent to the BSEC on March 31 showed that the company had Tk 437.35 crore in loans with 18 branches of 17 banks.
Of them, the BB inspection team had visited Eskaton branch of Bank Asia, Dhanmondi branch of Southeast Bank, Federation branch of IFIC Bank and found several loans were classified.
The AICL showed Tk 149 crore as the floor space value in the Rangs Tower which was demolished by the government in 2007.
The BSEC officials also said that the company did not issue any dividend for its shareholders for the last 17 years.
The company issued placement shares of Tk 107
Continued from B1
crore in 2009 but is yet to issue dividend for the shareholders.
Admitting that they have not paid any dividends to the shareholders, AICL deputy managing director Abdur Rahman earlier told New Age on Wednesday, ‘we hope that the company would be able to issue dividends for the shareholders if the BSEC withdraws the suspension on the IPO. Of the Tk 220-crore IPO fund, we will repay Tk 153 crore loans which will reduce interest burden of the company. The rest amount will be used for setting up plants which will obviously increase the productivity of the company and increase the earning.’
‘The company is fighting for compensation against the floor space in the demolished Rangs Tower. If we get the compensation in future, that will obviously be beneficial for the shareholders,’ Rahman said.
The AICL had submitted its IPO application to the BSEC in 2011, but the commission rejected it as it found a number of false information in the AICL application.
The BSEC also fined the company, its auditor firm, valuer firm and the issue manager in this connection.
On October 27, the AICL submitted the IPO application again to the BSEC setting offer price at Tk 20. But, the company on December 3, resubmitted the IPO application, increasing the offer price to Tk 22, BSEC officials said.
Allowing a company to increase offer price is an unusual practice which was never done before, the BSEC officials said.
On December 13, just after 10 days of submission of the application, the BSEC, after getting the Credit Information Bureau report from Bangladesh Bank, approved the AICL’s application to float 10 crore shares through an IPO with an offer price of Tk 22 each share including a premium of Tk 12.
-With New Age input
