Fire halts business recovery of Mother Textile
The 28 year old company’s yarn factory in Gazipur caught fire on the night of 15 April, damaging a lot of heavy machinery
When debt ridden Mother Textile came into regular loan repayments with a gradual business recovery, a devastating fire threatened to shut it down again.
The Gazipur factory of the 28 year old yarn producing company caught fire on the night of April 15, damaging a lot of heavy machinery.
Mohammad Abdul Hamid Mia, deputy assistant director of Gazipur fire service, said three fire service units were sent to Mother Textile soon after getting information of the fire. The fire units brought the flames under control after three hours of efforts, he added.
Keep updated, follow The Business Standard's Google news channel
Aliza Sultan, managing director of Mother Textile, was in hospital with Covid-19 complications during the fire accident.
Contacted, she said her company just came into regular loan repayment after being in default for a long time and started to get export orders as well. "But the sudden fire incident has left the company under the threat of closing down, as it has insurance premiums unpaid.
She said the company is insured with Crystal Insurance Company but premium payments were pending.
"We were planning to make the payment after the ongoing lockdown," she added.
During the pandemic, the company continued paying wages to around 6,000 of its workers without taking a stimulus loan, she said. She added that now the company needs Tk50 crore in cash to turn around from the losses induced by the fire.
Piled up bad loans forced the company to stop export quality yarn production and go for recycled yarn since 2003.
The company, a top borrower of Rupali Bank, is stuck with a loan of Tk1,200 crore.
The factory was set up in 1993 on around 70-80 bighas of land in Savar by Sultan Ahmed who has been suffering from a serious disease for several years.
Another director of the company and Ahmed's son, Shoeb Ahmed Sultan, is also sick and not capable of looking after the business.
Aliza Sultan, daughter-in-law of Sultan Ahmed, took the helm of the company as the managing director two years ago and has been trying to recover from losses.
