The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has formed a team to probe the recent unusual share price rise of Aftab Automobiles Ltd, a sister concern of Navana Group, at both bourses of the country, said an official Tuesday.
Share prices of the engineering company jumped by more than 123 per cent in the last one month, on a speculation that another concern of the group, Navana CNG Ltd, will be listed directly with the stock exchanges.
'We have formed an enquiry committee to look into the unusual trading and price hike of shares of the company recently,' said a high official of the SEC.
The two-member committee was asked to submit its report in 30 working days. SEC deputy directors Md Rezaul Karim and Md Jahangir Alam are the members of the committee.
The SEC official said the probe team would also investigate the suspected insider trading by the sponsors or directors of the company. He said abnormal rise in the company's share price in recent weeks has prompted the commission to investigate the matter.
Each Aftab Automobiles share closed at Tk 895.00 Tuesday, up from Tk 400.00 of one month ago against the face value of Tk 100, according to the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) website.
The share price of the company started surging from mid January when it was traded at around Tk 345. The DSE statistics also showed that number of trades of the company's shares also rose significantly in the period.
Between January 25 and February 22, the company's sponsors Anwarul Islam, Mafia Yasmin and Sumaiya Yasmin sold a large number of shares at the prevailing market price.
On February 16, in response to a DSE query regarding rumour on direct listing of Navana CNG with stock exchanges and other allied issues, the company informed the bourse that it had no shares in Navana CNG and so far they knew, Navana CNG had not yet applied for direct listing of its share with bourses, according to the DSE website.
Usually, in case of any unusual price movement, the DSE sends letters to the companies concerned to know if there is any price sensitive information behind the price rise.
