NB Bank seeks NEPSE’s approval for fresh AGM date

ShareSansar, May 7:

Nepal Bangladesh Bank Limited has applied with Nepal Stock Exchange Limited (NEPSE) to hold its deferred Annual General Meeting at the earliest.

“Since we have received information that the share transfer ownership row is nearing settlement, we have filed an application at NEPSE earlier this week, seeking its permission to hold our AGM as soon as possible,” NB Bank’s company secretary Dhiraj Raj Subedi told ShareSansar today.

NEPSE officials, too, confirmed that the bank has applied for the AGM.

“All the stakeholders have come together to settle the problem for good,” NEPSE Spokesperson Shambu Pant said. “All the stakeholders have come together to find a way out of this problem. Hence, we are looking forward to the problem related to the bank’s share transfer shortly.”

Niraj Giri, Spokesperson of the Securities Board of Nepal (SEBON), too, said that the concerned stakeholders have briefed the regular that the share transfer row is “more or less resolved”.

A highly placed source at the bank said that the issue is to be settled within two weeks.

“Once we get the green signal from the NEPSE, we will immediately hold a meeting of our Board of Directors to announce a fresh date for the AGM,” the source said. “We should be able to hold the AGM in a month’s time once the NEPSE okays it.”

He further said that the bank might issue a 15-day or 21-day notice for the AGM as required by the Company Act.

But he quickly clarified that there will not be any changes in the AGM plan that could affect interest of the shareholders, and that the dividend pledged by the company will not be altered.

Talking to ShareSansar on April 29, NB Bank’s Chief Executive Officer Gyanendra Prasad Dhungana and SEBON Spokesperson Giri had expressed hope that the problem will be settled by the first or the second week of May.

SEBON officials had also informed that they were planning to settle the problem within Baisakh (mid-May) since further delay would lead to further complications such as victimization of thousands of shareholders as well as affecting important decisions of NB Bank to be taken by the AGM.

SEBON officials maintain that they suspended the ban placed on trading in shares held by Nirmal Pradhan and company on April 2 after they pledged to compensate the victimized share investors by within a month.

NEPSE officials also maintain that Pradhan can easily settle the problem by transferring NB Bank shares to the victims, and that a month period was more than enough to do so.

Back in the first week of March, SEBON has directed NEPSE to stop trading shares held by Nirmal Pradhan, his wife and three sons, and his relatives Laxmi Bahadur Shrestha, Shankar Kumar Shrestha and Nabin Shrestha along with the scrips registered in the names of three of his share trading companies — Rajdhani Investment, Bagmati Investment and Lhotse Investment.

The regulator issued the directive after investing the complications stemming from the share ownership transfer row of NBB and National Hydropower Limited (NHPC) owing to the dispute between the Nirmal Pradhan and NB Groups.

Due to the dispute between the two groups, NB Bank has been forced to put off its Annual General Meeting slated for March 11. Besides announcing the book closure on February 17 for the AGM, the bank had even announced adjusted base of Rs 552.

The AGM was expected to endorse 10 percent bonus shares and 7.79 percent cash dividend from the net profit the commercial bank earned in the last fiscal year 2069/70, besides electing some directors.

The share ownership transfer complication has led to possible loss worth millions of rupees for more than 1,000 investors who bought some shares of the bank unknowingly.

It all started after Pradhan and Shrestha obtained 220,000 units of ordinary shares from Laxmi Bahadur Shrestha, a promoter of NB Group and a former NB Bank director, for a loan.

While transferring the ownership of the shares, Laxmi Bahadur had made them sign another agreement, which barred them from selling those shares.  However, the duo went on to seek marginal lending by placing the same shares as collateral at Narayani National Finance.

Then they failed to repay the loan and the finance company sold the shares in the secondary market.

Laxmi Bahadur then filed a law suit against Pradhan and Shrestha at the Kathmandu District Court against the sale of the shares, and the court ruled in his favor asking the concerned authorities to stop transferring ownership of shares sold by the finance company.

To pressurize the concerned parties to settle the festering share transfer row, brokers had stopped trading shares held by Pradhan and company as well as that of NB Bank for some time in February.