STOCK MARKET UPDATE: 05.04.2013

STOCKS

Karachi Stocks Up 37.56 Points:
KARACHI, Apr 04: At the close of trading, the KSE-100 index was at 18613.44, up 37.56 points.

 (Today Market is 2.45 Up@ 10.46 am)

April 4, 2013

 5 TOP GAINERS  &  LOOSERS:

Rafhan Maize	Rs 189.50	Colgate Palmolive	Rs (22.45)
Unilever Food	Rs 84.51	Sunrays Textile	Rs (12.50)
Bata Pak	Rs 69.33	Indus Motor Co	Rs (11.57)
Nestle Pakistan	Rs 37.36	Wyeth Pak	Rs (10.50)
National Foods	Rs 17.60	Packages Ltd	Rs (5.26)

Karachi Stock Market continues steady run

KARACHI, April 4: Continuing its steady upward run, the stock market added 37.56 points (0.20 per cent) to the KSE-100 index and closed at 18,613.44 points on Thursday.
Gaining Rs25.065 billion from Wednesday’s Rs4,559. 028bn, the market capital on Thursday reached Rs4,584. 093bn. Trading value decr-eased from Rs8.423bn to Rs8.376bn while the turnover increased from 203.382 million shares on Wednesday to 245.671m shares.
In the currency market, the rupee ended steady at 98.29/98.34 against the dollar while overnight rates in the money market remained flat at 9.40 per cent.
The said upward swing is being backed by the cement sector, with Dewan Cement leading the market’s volume, with a turnover of 21m shares, followed by Maple Leaf Cement with 20m shares and Engro Corporation with 12m shares.
According to Samar Iqbal at Topline Securities, the local bourse witnessed a range bound session after a straight gain of more than 500 points in last 3 days. “Oil and cement stocks witnessed profit taking. While investors also trimmed their position in fertiliser sector,” he added.
Meanwhile, traders at the market remain hopefull that the stocks will continue the bullish run as the election nears.
Among the 360 active stocks on Thursday, 201 gained, 140 were losers while 19 remained unchanged. The biggest scorer was Rafhan Maize which was up by Rs189/50 and closed at Rs3979.50, followed by Unilever Food which gained Rs84.51 to reach a closing rate of Rs4,584.51.
On the losing side, Colgate Palmolive and Sunrays Textile fared badly, with a decrease of Rs22.45 and Rs12.50 each, to closing at Rs1940.00 and 237.00 respectively.
On the top-10 active list, Dewan Cement saw a turnover in 21m shares, and went up by 6 paisa from Rs5.34 to close at Rs5.40. Maple Leaf Cement lose 95 paisa to close at Rs19.37 with a turnover of 20m shares, Engro Corp lost 48 paisa and went down from Rs136.23 to Rs135.75, with 12m shares while TRG Pakistan gained 25 paisa to close at Rs8.08 with 12m shares. Fatima Fertilizers gained 28 paisa and went from Rs22.33 to Rs22.61, with 11m shares. Fauji Cement meanwhile lost 17 paisa to close at Rs8.64, with a turnover of 11m shares. Up from Rs10.63, Engro Polymer gained 1 rupee and closed at Rs11.63 with 11m shares. PIA edged lower with a loss of 5 paisa to Rs6,96 from Wednesday’s 7.01, with 9m shares, Lotte Pak gained 6 paisa to close at Rs7.39 with 9m shares while Jah Sidd Co lost 41 paisa from Rs12.71 to close at Rs12.30 with 9m shares.
KSE-100 Index edges up in a range-bound session: KARACHI: Cement manufacturers helped Karachi Stock Exchange consolidate itself somewhat in a range-bound session here on Thursday, Geo News reported.

The benchmark KSE-100 Index ended 0.20 percent, or 37.56 points, higher at 18,613.44 points.

Among the top gainers Dewan Cement emerged as the volume leader as its share price jumped to Rs5.49 with a gain of 1.12 percent.

Ending up in the losers’ corner, Engro Corporation shed 0.61 percent to Rs135.40, while Maple Leaf Cement Factory Ltd fell down by 4.97 percent to close lower at Rs19.31.

Company News:

Simmering battle between JSCL, Al-Abbas Sugar: KARACHI, April 4: The simmering battle between Jahangir Siddiqui & Company (JSCL) and two majority stakeholders in Abbas Sugar Mills Limited came in full view of the public on Thursday, when a spokesman for JSCL defended the ‘advisory fee’ paid to a company’s non-executive director.
Also in a tit for tat for an early last week initiative of the major rival Haji Abdul Ghani — another powerful broker at the Karachi Stock Exchange — who had distributed a newspaper clipping alleging that advisory fees paid by JSCL was hefty, the JSCL spokesman on Thursday passed on to the press publicly available papers of the cases filed by JSCL in Sindh High Court against the
Broker Haji Ghani and CEO of Al-Abbas Sugar Mills, Shunaid Qureshi (nephew of JS Group founder, Jahangir Siddiqui).
The spokesman, however, stressed that he would not comment as the matter was with the courts.
The first issue of contention between the parties was the advisory fees of Rs424 million paid to Ali Siddiqui non-executive director and son of Jahangir Siddiqui.
According to the Annual Report 2012: “The company was holding 23m shares of Pakistan International Container Terminal (PICT), representing 21.07pc of the shares of PICT.
During the period, the company received Rs379.5m as cash dividend from PICT and an in specie dividend in the form of 11.5m shares of Pakistan International Bulk Terminal Limited (PIBT).
The note also stated: “During the period, the company sold its entire holding in PICT for aggregate sale proceeds of Rs3.631m and consequently earned a capital gain of Rs2.453bn.”
The JSCL spokesman said that the advisory fee of Rs424m paid to the advisor, Ali Siddiqui, formed 14pc of the total receipts in transaction. He stressed that internationally it was a recognised practice for major corporates to pay 20pc or more as ‘advisory fees’ for successfully completing such transactions.
The suit filed with the Sindh High Court by the JSCL stated that the company CEO Suleman Lalani, along with Ali Jehangir Siddiqui held 20pc shareholding in Al-Abbas Sugar Mills. The ‘suit for declaration and injunction’ stated: “There is massive pilferage/siphoning of and fraudulent diversion of the huge sums of money belonging to the company and is being diverted to the personal accounts of the CEO/directors (of Al-Abbas Sugar), namely Shunaid Qureshi; Haji Abdul Ghani; Hajiiani Noor Jehan and Ghani Osman Securities.”
The documents details methodologies alleged to have been used to siphon off the company money and calls for forensic audit of the company by independent chartered accountants.
Shunaid Qureshi, CEO of Al-Abbas Sugar Mills in regard to the advisory fees said that internationally 0.5 to 1pc of the transaction is paid as fees and not hefty 14pc as was paid by the JSCL to the executive director.
In relation to the Al-Abbas Sugar, Shunaid denied the allegations, saying that they would fight the battle in the courts. He thought that since the matter was subjudice, JSCL should not have released the court papers, to which the JSCL spokesman pointed out that those were ‘public documents’.
Shunaid also said that the SECP had taken notice of the advisory fees and called for explanation from JSCL.
Interestingly, both parties insisted that the action by the other was in reaction of them having first pointed out the irregularities in each other’s companies. It was not immediately possible to detect who was the first to have levied the charges against the other: JSCL for alleged pilferage of funds from Al-Abbas or the payment of advisory fee by the JSCL to the executive director.
It was, however, clear that in the cold cruel world of high finance, greed for wealth was so deep that even family members of highly reputed conglomerates were willing to wash dirty linen in public.

MOHAMMED SALEEM MANSOORI