PC to send yet another letter to Saudi bidder

FE Team | Published: June 13, 2007 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

Refayet Ullah Mirdha
The Privatisation Commission (PC) will be sending yet another letter to Saudi prince Bandar Bin Mohammad Bin Abdulrahman Al Saud soon requesting him to strike a final deal and take over the ownership of the Rupali Bank.
According to sources, said the PC sent a number of similar letters in the recent past but the prince, in most instances, ignored those.
"We have already finalised the content of a new letter to be sent to the prince within the shortest possible time," said a highly placed official of the PC Tuesday.
He said a few days ago the Saudi prince sent a letter to the PC wanting to know about the mode of payment but he did not elaborate further.
The final deal for handing over the largely state-owned Rupali Bank was scheduled to be completed by the end of month of May.
According to a source in the finance ministry, the government is waiting for a tentative date of arrival of prince Bandar Bin Mohammad Bin Abdulrahman Al Saud to strike the final deal on his takeover of the ownership of the bank.
According to an earlier decision, more than 93 per cent ownership of the state-owned Rupali Bank was scheduled to be handed over to the prince by May 31 last. But it could not be accomplished in time due to lack of response from the prince.
Meanwhile, the prices of the Rupali Bank shares have been declining on the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) over the last few days due to the delay in handing over of the ownership of the bank to the prince.
On Tuesday's trading at DSE, the price of the Rupali Bank share fell by 12.43 per cent to close at Tk 1338.25 per share, which soared to Tk 2400 following the news about the transfer of the bank to the Saudi buyer.
Investors are worried over the decline in the share price of the Rupali Bank as they have been incurring huge losses due to delay in handing over of the bank to the prince.
"I bought Rupali Bank shares worth Tk 400,000 at Tk 2200 per share, but it has now come down to Tk 1338.25 per share. So, you can understand my predicament," said an investor while talking to the FE Tuesday.