The securities regulator has granted special clearance to Beximco Pharmaceuticals so it can hold a vital board meeting to stave off delisting from the London Stock Exchange (LSE).
The permission was formally given on Sunday through a letter, according to a stock exchange filing on Monday.
Consequently, Beximco Pharma has scheduled its board meeting for Tuesday afternoon to clear a massive backlog of undisclosed financial reports.
The decision follows an intense regulatory and legal standoff. All three listed entities of the BEXIMCO Group have had their board activities frozen since March last year. This deadlock stemmed from a pending writ petition filed by the conglomerate challenging the market watchdog's deployment of 25 independent directors across their boards between December 2024 and January 2025.
The government-backed appointments aimed to address operational crises, loan defaults and labour unrest within the group.
For Beximco Pharma, the regulatory intervention expanded its board to 18 members, including nine government-appointed independent directors. While BEXIMCO officials claimed they could not legally meet until the High Court resolved the petition, the BSEC countered that the boards remained legally functional, accusing them of evading corporate compliance.
The urgency arose as trading of Beximco Pharma's Global Depositary Receipts (GDRs) on the LSE's Alternative Investment Market (AIM) has remained suspended since January 2 this year due to missing financial reports.
Under AIM rules, an unresolved six-month suspension triggers mandatory delisting - a critical deadline expiring on July 2 this year. Alarmed by the deadline, six institutional investors holding London-listed GDRs petitioned the BSEC for special intervention.
Prompted by a formal request from Beximco Pharma on June 18, the BSEC issued the clearance.
According to the order, the approval was granted to protect the "greater interest of the investors."
The board is now authorised to review and publish audited financial statements for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2025, alongside consecutive quarterly financial statements.
Md. Abul Kalam, spokesperson of the Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission, told The FE that resolving the disclosure crisis was vital to restoring foreign investor confidence, safeguarding shareholder equity and opening the door to the company's long-delayed Annual General Meeting.
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