Home ›› 10 Mar 2023 ›› Stock
Share manipulation has no longer been an uncommon issue in the country’s capital markets, and the bitter truth here is that general investors rush behind manipulators in search of overnight profits.
But, share values, according to market analysts, normally fall after the honeymoon period of price manipulation ends and general investors become the ultimate victim.
The securities regulator though takes several actions to thwart manipulations such offensive actions are still alive in the domestic stock markets.
It is also not uncommon that sponsors or directors of many companies rush to offload their shares when their shares become overvalued.
Stocks of ADN Telecom Limited, a publicly traded company in the IT sector, gained by 32.40 per cent in eight trading sessions from February 23 to March 6 this year.
ADN Telecom shares reached Tk 154.20 per share on March 6, which was up Tk 37.80 from the closing price of Tk 116.40 per share on February 23, as per the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) data.
A rumor has also spread in the market that ADN Telecom shares will reach Tk 200 per share in the immediate future.
Meanwhile, the company’s three sponsors completed the offloading of a significant number of shares during the eight mentioned trading sessions.
The three sponsors who discharged their shares during the time are Md Abu Yousof Zakaria, Mohammad Ali Sarkar, and Mamonoor Rashid.
These three sponsors jointly discharged over 27.57 lakh shares, which was 4.26 per cent of the company’s total shares of over 6.66 crore.
These three entrepreneurs, as per the company’s website, owned 17.05 lakh shares each till January this year.
The share lock-in period of sponsors and directors of the telecom firm that went public in 2019 ended on January 5 this year.
When contacted, Md Monir Hossain, company secretary of ADN Telecom Limited told The Business Post that the lock-in period with regard to the share sale of sponsors or directors expired in early January of the current year, so they could sell shares as per securities laws.
Of the three sponsors, Mohammad Ali Sarkar sold over 8.52 lakh shares, Mamonoor Rashid discharged 2 lakh shares, while Md Abu Yousof Zakaria offloaded his entire stake of 17.05 lakh shares through block transactions, according to filings available on the DSE website.
Talking to the Business Post, Abu Yousof Zakaria said he had discharged his entire stake due to a need for capital for a personal reason.
He, however, admitted the recent share price rise helped him pocket more capital through the share sales.
According to its unaudited financial report, ADN telecom’s net profit grew to Tk 12.99 crore in the July-December period of FY23 from Tk 7.95 crore in the July-December period of FY22.
The ISP, MPLS, IPLC, and IP Telephony service provider’s earnings per share (EPS) stood at Tk 2.1 for H1 of the current fiscal which was Tk 1.23 for H1 of the last fiscal.
The company raised Tk 57 crore through an initial public offering (IPO) in 2019.
