Jamuna Bridge to be listed on bourses early next year

FE Team | Published: October 03, 2007 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

Refayet Ullah Mirdha
State-owned Jamuna Multipurpose Bridge (JMB), the country's largest civil engineering project, is going to be listed on the stock exchanges early next year to raise the supply of good shares in the stock market.
The JMB Authority and the Investment Corporation of Bangladesh (ICB) held a meeting recently to formulate the modalities for offloading the shares in the stock market.
Managing Director of the ICB Ziaul Haque Khandaker said the ICB proposed the JMB to offload its shares worth Tk 5.0 billion for the public.
He said there is a chance that the JMB authority will offload shares as well as issue bond in the stock market.
"The progress on the work for offloading of the JMB shares indicates that it might be possible to complete the whole process within the current year or in the first part of the next year. The ICB has also been working speedily to bring this state-owned profit making project in the share market," he said.
Talking to the FE Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) Salahuddin Ahmed Khan also echoed the views of the ICB managing director in this connection.
He said some good government-owned companies' shares are scheduled to make debut on the DSE soon.
"So far, I know the work for offloading the shares of the JMB in the stock market has been progressing fast," he said.
He said the floatation of initial public offerings (IPOs) by some local, multinational and public companies will boost the market capitalisation significantly.
Khan said the trend of supply growth of issues on the DSE clearly indicates that the total market capitalisation of the DSE will cross more than $ 15 billion next year.
On Tuesday, the total market capitalisation increased to US$9.19 billion (Tk 626.353 billion), the highest ever on the DSE.
Finance ministry sources said the government will raise a major portion of its fund for construction of the 'Padma Bridge' through the securitisation of the JMB.