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The Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission (BSEC) on Wednesday asked the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) to inspect the affairs of Orion Infusion Limited after the company’s shares experienced an abnormal price hike due to alleged manipulation.
It also asked DSE to send the inquiry report to the commission within 20 working days.
“DSE will investigate the company’s financial statements, insider trading and share price manipulation issues. The matter will be thoroughly scrutinized and the investigation committee will summon relevant people, if necessary, for questioning,” the stock market regulator’s spokesperson Mohammad Rezaul Karim told The Business Post.
Orion Infusion’s share price increased by up to 815 per cent after the company announced its third-quarter results on April 8 this year. However, the publicly traded company’s net profit had increased by 36 per cent in the third quarter of FY2021–22.
Analysis shows that the unsteady rise in the company’s stock price does not match its steady financial progress.
Currently, Orion Infusion’s paid-up capital base stands at slightly over Tk 20 crore, which it needs to lift to Tk 30 crore by December this year to comply with regulatory requirements.
But according to DSE data, the company has been paying off cash dividends at a rate of more than 10 per cent per year since 2015.
On April 8, when it released the Q3 results for FY22, the company’s stock was traded at Tk 82.3 per share on the DSE trading floor. Two months later, its share price surprisingly started skyrocketing.
On August 2, Orion Infusion’s stock price reached Tk 117.7. Despite some minor corrections, the price has not fallen below this figure since then.
On Wednesday, the company’s shares were traded at Tk 919.60 per share.
The company’s earnings per share (EPS) for Q3 in FY2021-22 stood at Tk 0.45, against Tk 0.33 in the same period last fiscal year.
