Four firms miss deadlines to submit dividend reports

Four firms – GSP Finance Company (Bangladesh), Fortune Shoes, Kay & Que (Bangladesh), and Energypac Power Generation – have failed to submit compliance reports to the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) and the Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission (BSEC) within the stipulated seven working days after paying their declared dividends.

Hence, the DSE issued letters asking the firms to explain their non-compliance, according to the DSE disclosures by the companies on Monday.

As per listing rules, a listed firm shall disburse its declared dividends within 30 days of securing shareholders' approval at an annual general meeting (AGM) and submit a compliance report within seven working days of disbursement.

And, if a company misses this deadline, it shall be liable to pay a penalty of Tk5,000 to the DSE for each day of default.

According to sources, the DSE deems that these four companies haven't disbursed their declared dividends to the shareholders yet, as this type of non-compliance is not very common and the DSE noticed that these firms held their AGMs months ago.

The Business Standard tried to reach officials of these companies over phone, but no one responded.

The declared dividends

Fortune Shoes, an exporter of footwear, declared 10% cash and 5% stock dividends for the fiscal 2021-22. To secure shareholders' approval of the dividends, the company held its AGM on 8 December 2022.

Therefore, it was supposed to pay out the dividends by the first week of January, and send the report by mid-January.

In FY22, the company reported a 52% year-on-year growth in profit.

Energypac Power Generation – one of the leading companies in the power and energy sector – secured shareholders' approval of its declared 10% cash dividend for FY22 at its AGM which was also held on 8 December.

In FY22, the company witnessed an 81% fall in profit owing to losses from foreign currency transactions and an increased weighted average of the number of shares outstanding.

GSP Finance, a non-bank financial institution, held its AGM on 27 September 2022 to secure shareholders' approval of its 2.5% cash and 7.5% stock dividends declared for the 2020-21 fiscal year.

It was supposed to disburse the dividend by October 2022.

Lastly Kay & Que, which declared a 5% interim cash dividend for the July to March period of FY22, also missed the deadline to submit the compliance report.