Energy Secretary Mohammad Mohsin dispelled Monday the misgivings about the offloading of Titas gas shares under the direct listing rules and said the company is not bound to sell all the shares it has offered within 30 days from the day of debut trading.
He said the Titas has already complied with the provision concerned of the direct listing regulations offering shares through the stock exchanges, officials said.
"We have already complied with the direct listing regulations offering 10 per cent of the total holdings for sale through the country's two stock exchanges," Mohammad Mohsin told the FE Monday.
Mr Mohsin, who is also the chairman of Titas board of directors, said under the direct listing rules there are bindings for making sale offer of 10 per cent shares. The company is not required to offload all the shares it has offered within 30 days as being claimed by certain circles.
Titas, the country's top state-owned gas distribution company, is not liable to offloading of 10 per cent shares under the existing direct listing regulation, the energy secretary categorically mentioned.
A meeting chaired by energy secretary was held in the secretariat Monday afternoon to review the situation with the Titas shares offloading.
Senior officials of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), ministry of finance, stock exchanges, the managing director of the Titas gas attended the meeting.
During the meeting, Titas sought cooperation of the SEC and the stock exchanges in proper interpretation of the direct listing regulations.
It also informed the meeting that it had evidence of placing offers for the sale of 10 per cent shares through the stock exchanges.
According to the article 5 of the direct listing regulation 2006, a company "shall offer for sell at least 10% of the shareholdings in the company within 30 (thirty) working days from the date of listing."
This provision was misinterpreted so far, the energy secretary claimed.
When contacted, SEC chairman Faruq Ahmad Siddiqi said: "We will see the legal aspects in this connection."
Titas Gas was listed with the country's both the bourses as the fifth state-run company aiming to offload 25 per cent shares of its total holdings of 8,564,6912 shares.
Since debut trading on July 2 Titas has so far sold 6,70,200 shares through its selling agent, the Investment Corporation of Bangladesh (ICB).
No trading of Titas shares took place on the day of debut trading.
After the kick off the share prices of Titas gas was on declining trend as the investors along with the market players were not keen to purchase the shares.
According to DSE statistics prices of every Titas share was Tk 424.75 on July 7, which declined to as low as Tk 289 a share on August 4 (Monday).
