Saif Powertec, the country’s leading terminal operator, and a listed company on stock exchanges, and also its sister concerns have suffered heavy losses due to the fire at Mohakhali’s Khawaja Tower on Thursday.
The company lost its project engineer Rafiqul Islam (65) in the fire and 18 others got injured.
Rafiqul was a resident of Mirpur. He was pronounced dead when he was taken to Dhaka Medical College Hospital, said Inspector Bachchu Mia, in charge of the DMCH police outpost.
The devastating fire in Khawaja Tower in Mohakhali has also triggered widespread disruptions in Internet and telecom services nationwide since Thursday.
SAIF Powertec Group’s Chief Financial Officer Md Hasan Reza said many important of the company were burnt.
Tarafder Md Ruhul Saif, director of the Saif Power Group, said, “We have rented a total of seven floors in the building. All the floors were affected in some way or another. My father, who is the managing director of the company, and many of my colleagues somehow escaped through the fire exit stairs. There was smoke everywhere.
Brigadier General Main Uddin, the director general of Fire Service and Civil Defense, said that although there were some fire extinguishers on several floors, the presence of batteries, storage units, cables, switches, and insulation foam, along with the lavishly furnished interiors on the 12th and 13th floors, contributed to spreading the flames.
Saif Powertec handles around 60 per cent of containers at the Chattogram seaport.
It was incorporated and listed on stock exchanges in 2003. However, it went public in 2014.
The company operates the Chattogram Container Terminal (CCT) and New Mooring Container Terminal (NCT), which make up 65 per cent of the total twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) of containers handled by the Chattogram port.
In March 2022, SAIF Powertec reached an agreement with Safeen Feeders, a subsidiary of Abu Dhabi Ports Company PJSC, to operate eight bulk carrier vessels for shipping dry bulk cargoes from Fujairah Port to Chittagong Port, according to an equity note prepared by EBL Securities, a stockbroker.
Later in September, it entered into another contract with Safeen Feeders to operate three container vessels transporting containers from the UAE to Bangladesh.
Saif Maritime LLC, a Dubai-based subsidiary of Saif Powertec, would charter the container vessels for a contract period of 15 years.
The company recently acquired a 100 per cent stake in Saif Maritime LLC by investing Tk 1.26 crore from which it expects to generate an estimated annual revenue of Tk 25.98 crore and a net profit of Tk 3.89 crore.
On Sunday, the Saif Powertec share price stood at Tk 29.70 on the Dhaka Stock Exchange.
