Quasem Silk gets BSEC nod to transfer ownership

Infographics: TBS

The securities regulator has allowed the sponsor-directors of Quasem Silk Mills Limited to sell their entire 49.66% holding in the company to five individuals.

The Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission (BSEC) approved this ownership transfer last week and issued letters to the related parties in this regard.

According to the BSEC, the new prospective owners are Bashir Ahmed, Ashraf Bin Taj, Abu Sufian Raju, Farhana Anwar Rahman, and Maikel Dey.

The ownership transfer will be carried out according to the share purchase agreement.

The upcoming sponsor-directors will collectively hold a minimum of 30% shares of the company's total paid-up capital. The company will then construct a board of directors incorporating new shareholders who hold 2% or above shares in the company.

The said shares held by sponsor-directors will be locked in for three more years in the block module. The company is not allowed to raise further capital until the reconstitution of the board of directors.

The new owners will regularise all pending issues, including banking operations, within three months of the takeover completion.

They will also inject fresh funds to start the company's operations by maintaining a separate bank account. The issuance of capital against those injected funds will be subject to BSEC approval.

All shares of the company will be dematerialised immediately after the completion of the transfer.

This ownership transfer approval does not allow the shifting of the company to the SME platform of the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE). For that, the company needs to seek separate approval from the BSEC subject to compliance with the above conditions.

The Business Standard tried to contact Quasem Silk's Managing Director Tasvir ul Islam for a comment about the stake transfer, but he did not answer any calls. Other officials declined to comment in this regard.

Quasem Silk Mills was listed on the DSE in 1988. It was traded on the bourse's over-the-counter (OTC) platform, which has now been abolished.

Back in 2009, the DSE launched the OTC market with 51 companies in the list. The companies were ousted from the main board to the OTC because of their underperformance or non-performance in business, failure to hold shareholders' annual general meetings for years, and for converting their own shares into electronic ones instead of paper certificates. 

In September 2021, the BSEC decided to shift Quasem Silk to the alternative trading board (ATB) of the DSE. Its authorised capital is Tk20 crore, and paid-up Tk2 crore.