March 03- The capital market regulator has asked the stock exchange not to undertake any transaction of the players involved in Nepal Bangladesh Bank share transfer row.
Securities Board of Nepal (Sebon) has issued a circular to Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) not to honour any transaction ordered by 10 individuals and three companies that are in the centre of ongoing NBB share transfer row for the time being. Nepse has already forwarded the decree to brokers till Sebon concludes its probe into the issue.
According to Sebon's directive, the transaction ordered by Nirmal Pradhan, his wife and three sons; Laxmi Bahadur Shrestha, his brother and nephew; Shankar Kumar Shrestha and Nabin Shrestha, and three share trading companies — Rajdhani Investment, Bagmati Investment and Lhotse Investment — are not to be undertaken.
"We have been asked not to undertake any orders placed by the people directly involved in the ongoing problem of NBB share transfer," informed president of Stock Brokers Association of Nepal (SBAN), Narendra Raj Sijapati. "As it is, none of the brokers were taking their orders since past two weeks," he added.
Some 1,000 buyers of NBB Bank's 220,000 unit shares are left in the lurch following the failure to transfer shares belonging to Nirmal Pradhan and Shankar Shrestha.
As the concerned authorities failed to address their troubles, brokers had stopped taking orders for sale of shares belonging to duo and that of NBB.
One of the promoters of NBB, Laxmi Bahadur Shrestha had obtained loan from Pradhan but with a contract that forbade the latter to sell those shares. Later, however, Pradhan and Shankar Shrestha pledged the shares at Narayani National Finance to obtain loan. The company then auctioned off the shares when the borrowers could not repay the loan.
Laxmi Bahadur Shrestha then lodged a case at Kathmandu District Court to annul the share transfers. The court also stayed the share transfer in November 2013, which prevented share registrar Elite Capital from transferring shares in the name of the investors who had bought the shares.
Sebon has formed a probe panel to investigate the matter, which will be submitting a report within this week. Only then will the capital market regulator decide on further action.
Source: THT
