ACME Lab sponsor to sell shares to ease Sinha Securities deficit

Sinha Securities' Chairman Parveen Akhter Khanam will sell two lakh shares from her holdings of 65.15 lakh shares in The ACME Laboratories to reduce the deficit in the consolidated customer account (CCA) of the brokerage firm.

The shares are valued at over Tk1.47 crore, based on Monday's price of Tk73.80 each on the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE).

Parveen Akhter Khanam, a sponsor shareholder of the drug manufacturer, is taking this step as per instructions from the Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission (BSEC).

According to the DSE, as of 14 August, the deficit in Sinha Securities' CCA stood at Tk8.49 crore, slightly reduced from Tk8.51 crore on 7 March. The deadline to cover the entire deficit was 19 March 2024.

As the extension period for addressing the deficit approached its end in March this year, Sinha Securities requested an additional one-year extension from the BSEC and sought renewal of its depository participant (DP) licences. However, the commission rejected the request.

Later in September, the BSEC decided to freeze all bank and beneficiary owner (BO) accounts of the company's directors, including the managing director and chief executive officer (CEO), according to sources.

The commission also requested the Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit (BFIU) to freeze the bank accounts and imposed a travel ban on the directors, managing director, and CEO of the firm.

The owners of Sinha Securities have been struggling to address the deficit amid ongoing business challenges.

The CCA

A CCA is a separate bank account maintained by stockbrokers to hold unused cash from their clients' BO accounts.

It is strictly prohibited to utilise this money for any purpose other than paying for securities purchased by the client or collecting commissions or fees owed by the client. 

Any use of funds from the CCA for purposes other than these specified payments results in a deficit in the account.

In this case, the owners of Sinha Securities have utilised funds from the CCA accounts, leading to the deficit.

BSEC instruction

In a disclosure on 1 December, the company stated that the BSEC had instructed Parveen Akhter Khanam, a sponsor shareholder of the company and chairman of Sinha Securities, to sell 22 lakh shares of The ACME Laboratories to offset the deficit in the CCA of Sinha Securities.

In line with the commission's instruction, Parveen Akhter Khanam in a stock exchange filing on Monday expressed her intention to sell two lakh shares from her total holdings in The ACME Laboratories at the prevailing market price, either in the public or block market, through the DSE within the next 30 working days.