What’s wrong with NIC ASIA Capital? What’s the fate of NIC ASIA Growth Scheme?

At a time when flow of information has been made far easier and accessible with upgrades in latest technology, NIC ASIA Capital has proved itself as both follower and mocker of this global practice. First, the merchant banking wing of NIC ASIA Bank won lot of acclamations from every quarters couple of days ago for having declared the IPO results of Aarambha Microfinance in mere 37 hours of closure of its issuance. However, the most overlooked side of this merchant banking institution (perhaps the forgotten one as well) is its prolonged procrastination of the Mutual Fund results regarding the NIC ASIA Growth Fund which was closed on Falgun 13, 2074. NIC Asia Growth Fund closed its public issue of 10 crore unit shares worth Rs 1 arba on Falgun 13, 2074. The issue was floated for more than 5 weeks (Magh 2, 2074 onwards) apparently because the close-ended scheme couldn’t raise enough interest among the investors thereby registering a low subscription rate. Similar was the fate of Citizens Mutual Fund that was floated in the market at around the same time and failed to reach the Rs 1 arba mark by Rs 18 crore despite of repeated extended deadlines. However, the happy part of that story was the public who had invested their hard-earned money in the scheme got to know about the complete collection figure; though delayed it was. In case of NIC ASIA Growth Fund, the investors have been expecting to know about at least the tentative collection figure as 2 weeks have already passed after the closure of public issue. However, no such signs have been seen even after repeated and tedious follow-ups with the officials at NIC ASIA Capital who are responsible for management and dissemination of the collection data. Neither does the regulatory body, Securities Board of Nepal (SEBON) seem to have enough time and willingness to pursue this issue with seriousness. Even the regular follow-ups with SEBON have borne no fruits as neither do SEBON officials have daily collection/tentative collection figure nor have they shown commitments to push NIC ASIA Capital to speed up their work. Here, the issue simply is not about one person or one institution procrastinating to provide the public data. The big question here is whether there is any agency that could stir up the entire banking and financial ecosystem when the institutions fail to live up to the public expectations. Bigger question is whether the regulatory bodies have enough plans and policies to set a fixed time frame for every events that caters huge public interest.