bdnews24.com :
The High Court has ordered Khulna Printing and Packaging Limited (KPPL) to clarify issues raised in media reports alleging the company of ‘playing around with numbers.
The bench of Justices Mirza Hussain Haider and Muhammad Khurshid Alam Sarkar on Wednesday asked the company to come up with explanation by May 27.
On an HC rule on May 7 by the same bench on this matter, KPPL’s managing director was given seven days to explain the allegations in the news reports.
The HC bench had then stopped the IPO proceedings of KPPL. The following day, the Appellate Division stayed the order.
Wednesday’s order came as KPPL’s counsel sought more time to come up with explanations, said the petitioner’s counsel Qazi Md Arifur Rahman.
Supreme Court lawyer Md Raihanul Mostofa had filed the petition seeking an order to stop the KPPL’s IPO.
Media reports including those in bdnews24.com indicated the company’s effort to project inflated revenues and sales to attract strong public response.
KPPL got the market regulator’s clearance to raise Tk 400 million by issuing 40 million shares on Mar 4 this year. Subscriptions for the IPO opened on Sunday and were supposed to end on May 8.
Its IPO prospectus says the firm’s revenue in 2009 -10 fiscal was Tk 340 million. But, the very next year it surged to Tk 1.19 billion, up by a staggering 247 percent.
Then, between July 2011 and June 2012, the company’s sales shot up to Tk 2.08 billion before dipping somewhat in July 2012- June 2013 to Tk 1.91 billion.
Industry insiders, however, found KPPL’s claim as outrageous.
