Walton director to offload one-lakh shares again

Walton Hi-Tech Industries Limited’s Sponsor Director SM Ashraful Alam again announced the offloading of 1 lakh shares in the market on Thursday.

The fresh decision came just a day after the company’s another Director SM Mahbubul Alam declared to offload 1 lakh shares in the market.

Moreover, SM Ashraful Alam himself decided twice in four months to sell shares.

Earlier, he had offloaded 1 lakh shares in August this year.

Once this sale is completed, one per cent of Walton shares would become free-floated ones.

Free-float shares are those shares of a listed firm which are held by external shareholders and who do not need any prior declaration before trading those stocks.

The company’s directors were offloading their shares to comply with a regulatory directive that every listed firm must have a minimum of 10 per cent free float shares in the market, according to company sources.

Currently, Walton has only 0.99 per cent free float shares out of its total shares, according to DSE data.

The BSEC in September last year ordered Walton Hi-Tech Industries, Berger Paints Bangladesh Ltd, and the Investment Corporation of Bangladesh (ICB) and some other companies to ensure a minimum of 10 per cent free-float shares each within a year by offloading their sponsor-held shares.

Ashraful Alam would sell the declared 1 lakh shares out of his holding of 6.59 crore shares in the secondary market through the Dhaka Stock Exchange in the next 30 days.

Walton shares were traded at the floor price of Tk 1,047.7 per share on the DSE trading floor on Thursday.

In 2020, Walton raised Tk 100 crore from the capital market by offloading only 0.97 per cent of its total shares, which drew much criticism from the market participants.