PLFS’s stock trading suspension continues
Trading of shares of the People’s Leasing and Financial Services (PLFS), which is under process of liquidation, will be suspended for another 15 days starting from today.
This is the third time the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) is extending the suspension.
Yesterday, the premier bourse informed investors about its latest decision.
In July, the government directed the central bank to liquidate the non-bank financial institution due to deterioration of its financial health in the last couple of years.
In mid-July, the DSE suspended the trading in line with a Bangladesh Bank’s liquidation decision.
As of May 31, retail investors held 68 percent of the NBFI’s stock.
The non-bank’s problems came to the surface in 2013-14, when some of its directors made off with more than Tk 1,000 crore by way of submitting fake documents, according to a central bank inspection report.
In 2015, the central bank removed five directors for their involvement in the financial scandal.
But it was not enough. Since then the non-bank has been on a downward spiral. For instance, in the first nine months of last year the PLFS’s operating expenses stood at Tk 22.48 crore against operating income of Tk 2.05 crore.
The PLFS sometimes failed to pay wages of its employees because of the severe liquidity crunch.
