Now, ACME Lab sponsor to sell 20 lakh shares to offset Sinha Securities deficit

Sinha Securities' Chairman, Parveen Akhter Khanam, has announced her decision to sell 20 lakh shares of The ACME Laboratories, a publicly listed drug-maker in the capital market.

Parveen Akhter, a sponsor-director of the company, currently owns 65.19 lakh shares of The ACME Laboratories.

The shares are valued at Tk14.82 crore, based on Wednesday's closing price of Tk74.10 each on the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE).

She has been selling the shares primarily to address the deficit in the Consolidated Customer Account (CCA) of Sinha Securities.

Sinha Securities owners are struggling to meet deficit occurred in its CCA, a separate bank account maintained by stockbrokers to hold unused cash from their clients' BO accounts.

It is strictly prohibited to utilise this money for any purpose other than paying for securities purchased by the client or collecting commissions or fees owed by the client. 

Any use of funds from the CCA for purposes other than these specified payments results in a deficit in the account.

In this case, the owners of Sinha Securities have utilised funds from the CCA accounts, leading to the deficit.

On 27 November, the Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission (BSEC) instructed and allowed Parveen Akhter Khanam to offset deficit of the CCA selling shares from her holdings of ACME Laboratories. 

To abide by the instruction of the commission, two-day before on 2 December, Parveen Akhter Khanam had expressed her intension to sell two lakh shares of the ACME Lab from her holdings. 

On Wednesday, in a disclosure said that Parveen Akhter Khanam, a sponsor of the company, has expressed her intention to sell 20 lakh shares out of her total holding of 65.19 lakh hares of the Company at prevailing market price.

The shares to be sold in the Public or Block Market through the DSE within next 30 working days, the disclosures reads. 

Tk8.49cr deficit in CCA 

According to the DSE, as of 14 August, the deficit in Sinha Securities' CCA stood at Tk8.49 crore, slightly reduced from Tk8.51 crore on 7 March.

The deadline to cover the entire deficit was 19 March 2024.

As the extension period for addressing the deficit approached its end in March this year, Sinha Securities requested an additional one-year extension from the BSEC and sought renewal of its depository participant (DP) licences.

However, the commission rejected the request.

Later in September, the BSEC decided to freeze all bank and beneficiary owner (BO) accounts of the company's directors, including the managing director and chief executive officer (CEO), according to sources.

The commission also requested the Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit (BFIU) to freeze the bank accounts and imposed a travel ban on the directors, managing director, and CEO of the firm.

The owners of Sinha Securities have been struggling to address the deficit amid ongoing business challenges.