Islamabad: The Parliamentary panel responsible for investigating into allegations of malpractice by the Bank of Punjab (BOP) in its right shares issue has decided to drop the charges.
State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) and Securities Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) both gave a clean chit to this rights share issue of BOP and said all regulations had been met by the bank regarding it.
In mid-July, it had been reported Ali Nadeem, minority shareholder of BOP had said in its previous meeting that the banks decision to issue right shares at Rs12 per share was done to aid the underwriters which had abruptly risen from two to six parties.
Nadeem then had accused the management of BOP to be a part of it and mentioned minority stakeholders couldn’t subscribe to the rights issue because they would have incurred a big loss.
In mid-May, The Bank of Punjab (BOP) had decided to do a right shares issue of around Rs13b, which would allow it to give out more loans, improve its capital structure and help in expanding its network as per the SBP directives.
As per President of BOP, Naeemuddin Khan who had said “The new issue of right shares is purely a business decision taken by the management to further strengthen the bank’s balance sheet. The stronger equity base of the bank will improve its credit ratings, provide additional comfort to stakeholders, and enable the management to expand its branch network and explore new business avenues for enhancing our earnings.“ This will be the thirds rights issue for BOP in the last three years.
