Delta Life calls board meeting after 42 months

Infographic: TBS

Delta Life Insurance Company Ltd is going to arrange a meeting of its board of directors (BoD) at 3pm on 11 April, after a hiatus of 42 months as the company has not had any BoD meeting to approve financial statements since October 2019, according to the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE).

The meeting would review the company's financial statements for 2019, 2020, and 2021 together. Besides, dividends would be recommended for the years.

Shareholders of the country's maiden private sector life insurer have neither got any dividend nor the financial statements since the last board meeting.

The delay was caused by some issues with the company's primary regulator, the Insurance Development and Regulatory Authority (Idra), said company officials.

Miltan Bepari, additional managing director and chief financial officer at Delta Life, said since the second half of 2020, the company waited for the Idra approval of the basis of actuarial valuations for its 2019 annual report which was denied by the regulator.

Instead, triggering a louder controversy, the regulator suspended Delta's board and appointed an administrator in March 2021 and the emergency ended in September last year through the court-mediated withdrawal of the administrator and handing over the company board to a group of sponsors, shareholders, and independent directors.

"Under the administrator, we could not arrange any board meeting as the regulator kept the board of directors suspended for 19 months," said Miltan Bepari.

In the other months since October 2019, there had been regular board meetings to decide the company's regular affairs other than approving financial statements as they were not prepared then.

However, the pending board meetings have been called as the company secured a High Court approval to arrange its deferred annual general meetings.

Delta Life faced a decline in its annual premium income due to the pandemic in 2020 and bounced back in 2021, according to its unaudited figures reported to the Idra.  

However, even under the administrator, the company's premium income increased to Tk763 crore in 2021 to surpass that in the pre-pandemic year. Meanwhile, the total life insurance fund of the company dropped to Tk3,954 crore at the end of 2021, from Tk4,120 crore at the end of 2020, according to the unaudited data the company submitted to Idra.

Delta Life shares, having a face value of Tk10 apiece, were manipulated by a group of stock investors in 2020 and 2021, some of whom were penalised by the Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission. 

However, the shares gained by 0.3% to Tk149.5 in the DSE on Tuesday. It ranged between Tk62 and Tk232 in the last three years.