Gemini Sea Food stocks surge 46% in a week

Shares of Gemini Sea Food, a seafood manufacturer, surged 46 per cent to Tk 665 per share from Tk 456.7 in seven trading sessions till Wednesday at the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE).

With this price gain, the company’s stock price reached a two-year high level, according to the DSE data.

As many as 9 lakh shares of the company were traded on March 30 this year, followed by 7.95 lakh shares on April 4.

Due to the constant share price hike, the DSE on Wednesday served the company a show-cause notice asking it to explain the reason behind the recent continuous rise in its share prices.

In response, the company informed of that there was no undisclosed price sensitive information behind the recent unusual price hike and an increase in the volume of traded shares.

The company, however, signed an agreement with a German frozen food company, LENK, on March 7 to expand its business.

The company’s price per share was Tk 461.4 on the day of this announcement.

In response to the DSE query, AFM Nazrul Islam, company secretary of Gemini Sea Food said, “I don’t know the reason why our shares are getting rocketed. All our financial updates and plans are available on the DSE website.”

The seafood manufacturer reported Tk 4.33 crore in net profit during the July-December period of the current fiscal year, which was almost double than that of the same period last fiscal.

The shrimp exporter, according to its latest financial report, witnessed a thriving profit in H1 of the fiscal year 2022-23 after prices of raw materials cooled down in the global market.

The listed company posted a net profit of Tk 2.40 in H1 of FY22 and a net loss of Tk 3.72 crore in the same half of the previous fiscal.

Gemini Sea Food’s total revenue in the July-December period of FY23 stood at Tk 40.50 crore of which Tk 38.35 crore was generated from export receipts, and the remnant Tk 2.15 crore was granted by the government as export subsidy.

The growing exports coupled with the lower production cost helped the company log a good profit, the company stated in its H1 financial report.

The company also plans to raise its paid-up capital to more than Tk 30 crore from the existing figure of Tk 6.10 crore to comply with the regulations set by the Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission.

The company secretary said a 30 per cent bonus dividend and a 10 per cent cash dividend were paid to its shareholders for FY22.

Gemini Sea Food’s export turnover stood at Tk 72.65 crore in FY22 of which 58 per cent came from the European markets, while 18 per cent from Canada, 13 per cent from the US, and 11 per cent from Japan, according its latest annual report.

The company accounted for a 56 per cent of the country’s total shrimp exports in FY22.

Its earnings per share rose to Tk 7.10 for the July–December half of 2022 against Tk 3.94 for the same period of the previous year.

The firm got listed on the Dhaka Stock Exchange in 1985.

Gemini Sea Food shares rose by 7.50 per cent to Tk 665 per share on the Dhaka Stock Exchange on Wednesday.