Ahsan Habib

Though Bangladesh has made stellar progress in many economic indicators in the past one decade, entrepreneurs, industrialists and the entire business sector still rely on the banking sector for financing. 

The exit process for 29 low-performing companies whose shares are traded on the over-the-counter market of the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) has begun.  

The Insurance Development and Regulatory Authority (IDRA), the sole regulatory body for insurance companies in Bangladesh, has identified nine issues that are impeding growth in the country’s non-life insurance sector.

Over half of the life insurance companies in Bangladesh exceeded their allowable management expense in 2021, putting a negative impact on life funds and eroding their capacity to settle claims.

The claim settlement ratio of life insurance companies in Bangladesh plunged to its lowest level at least in a decade in 2021 as their capacity to pay out has been reduced by bad investment, excessive costs and business slowdown caused by the coronavirus pandemic. 

Anwar Hossen, who holds an MBA, works for a private firm and draws a monthly salary of more than Tk 60,000. But he has not purchased any life insurance policy although private sector employees in Bangladesh are not entitled to any pension support and his four-member family will be in trouble if he faces any untimely death. 

International Finance Corporation (IFC) wants to issue taka denominated bonds worth $4 billion, either through public issuance or private placement, among local investors to lend the proceeds to projects in Bangladesh. 

The Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission (BSEC) has found that three investors and their associates made gains of around Tk 12 crore by manipulating stocks of Provati Insurance in 2020.

Stocks in Bangladesh suffered a steep fall yesterday as worries about a slowdown in the economy deepened among investors amid continued stress in the forex market, the decline in export and remittance, higher inflation, and the escalating war in Ukraine.

Trading of government securities is going to start on the stock exchanges from Monday in a bid to make general investors accustomed to dealing with these treasury bonds and bills. 

Five listed companies that have an accumulated loss of at least Tk 500 crore each saw their share price rise sharply in the past three months, whereas the stocks of the top profit-makers fell.  

Financial wellness platform Wagely Bangladesh this week hosted its sixth “wagely day” on the premises of garment manufacturer SQ Group. 

Stocks of Orion Infusion soared more than five times in recent months despite having low earnings per share and repeated warnings from the company that it has no undisclosed information that could have spurred such an abnormal rise.

Foreign investors in Bangladesh’s stock market are selling shares en masse as the local currency’s depreciation against the US dollar coupled with various policy changes over the past few years has lowered their confidence in securing adequate returns. 

Listed companies in Bangladesh have built up reserves of Tk 153,000 crore collectively from their respective earnings for use in expansion and to weather out rainy days, when they would otherwise be forced to raise fresh funds from investors or borrow from lenders. 

The country’s manufacturing and processing behemoth Pran-RFL Group has made a foray into mobile phone manufacturing to capture a slice of the rapidly expanding digital device market in Bangladesh. 

Cricket icon Shakib Al Hasan is once again in the spotlight as his name has come up in probes into stock manipulation.

In its first, the Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission (BSEC) has moved to be tougher against the issue managers or merchant banks that have brought low-performing companies to the stock market. 

The finance costs have at least doubled for the firms that have taken on dollar-denominated loans from external sources owing to the depreciation of the Bangladeshi taka against the American greenback. 

A common scenario in the domestic stock market is low performing stocks becoming the top gainers no matter how the market indices react.