Trouble-ridden People's Leasing and Financial Services Ltd. showed a slight reduction in its sky-high losses in a delayed financial statement published on Wednesday.
The non-bank financial institution (NBFI) disclosed financial results for 2022, which it was supposed to make public by March 2023.
In the earnings report, it showed a 23.05 per cent year-on-year decline in losses to about Tk 3.16 billion for 2022, without explaining how it happened.
A detailed financial statement is not yet available.
When contacted, Md. Armia Fakir, company secretary, also refused to give an explanation.
The company has been in the red since 2018 and has not paid any dividend since 2015.
The NBFI fell into a dire strait after Prashanta Kumar (PK) Halder, former managing director of Reliance Finance and NRB Global Bank, swindled over Tk 35 billion from four NBFIs, including the People's Leasing, between 2014 and 2015.
Some former directors of the People's Leasing were also involved in the scam, which got its way out to the public in 2019. PK Halder was arrested in India's West Bengal in May 2022.
In 2019, the Bangladesh Bank initiated liquidation proceedings against the People's Leasing in the Company Bench of the Supreme Court. But the court ordered a restructuring of the company and appointed a dedicated board of directors to manage its operations.
The firm has been badly affected by its sheer volume of defaulted loans, with classified amounts reaching around 99 per cent of the total outstanding loans, according to an audited report of the NBFI for 2021.
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