Usmania Glass resumes production

The government's lone glass production facility, Usmania Glass Sheet Factory Limited (UGSFL), resumed commercial production on 6 August after a pause for a year for repair and renovation of its two furnaces.

According to the Bangladesh Chemical Industries Corporation (BCIC), one of the two furnaces UGSFL had for producing glass sheets was shut down a couple of years ago following recurrent losses. The other one got damaged in an accident on 23 June 2020.

The BCIC subsequently initiated repairing the furnaces at a cost of Tk3 crore.

With both furnaces on, the daily production of Usmania Glass is 40,000 square feet of glass sheets, or an annual production of around 1.5 crore square feet.

The Chattogram-based company was launched 1960 and later got listed on both the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) and the Chittagong Stock Exchange.

Although the company incurred more than Tk30 crore in losses over the last five years it has been providing shareholders dividends from its earnings of fixed deposits. But it did not give any dividends to stockholders last year.

From January to March 2021, the company suffered a loss of Tk8.27 crore while its revenues stood at Tk11.86 crore. During this period, its earnings per share were negative Tk4.75,  and its net asset value was Tk87.55.

Sponsors and directors hold 2% of its shares, the government 51%, institutional investors 10.75%, and general investors 36.25% of company shares.

The closing share price was Tk68.90 each at the DSE, at the end of Thursday's trading session.

After its inception in 1960, the UGSFL introduced its second production unit in 1970, and was granted standard certification by a Belgian company in 1995.