Custodian to manage Beximco assets

The Bangladesh Bank (BB) took three major decisions yesterday, including the appointment of a custodian, officially termed as a receiver, at troubled Beximco Group in order to prevent its fall and protect the interests of investors, employees and lenders.

Additionally, the central bank decided in principle to hire a consulting firm to recover money laundered abroad, particularly from destinations such as the UK, the US, Singapore and the UAE.

It also provided clearance for a forensic audit into Nagad, a much-discussed mobile financial service provider that is yet to obtain any licence.

A forensic audit is an examination and evaluation of a firm's or individual's financial records, through which evidence is derived to be used in a court of law or legal proceeding.

The decisions came at a meeting of the central bank's board, chaired by Governor Ahsan H Mansur.

The central bank decided to appoint Md Ruhul Amin, an executive director of the BB, as the receiver of Beximco Group, which landed in hot water following the arrest of its vice-chairman Salman F Rahman, who served as private sector adviser to ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

Rahman was a trusted adviser of Hasina, who fled Bangladesh in the face of a mass uprising on August 5.

He was also an influential figure in Bangladesh's financial sector.

The bank accounts of Salman, founder of Beximco Pharmaceuticals, and his family members were frozen by the Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit (BFIU) in late August. The National Board of Revenue also examined whether he had complied with tax laws.

The central bank's move came in line with a directive from the High Court (HC) in September. It asked for the appointment of a receiver to manage all the companies of Beximco Group.

With interests in textiles, pharmaceuticals, ceramics, information and communication technology, media, financial services and energy, the group has over 70,000 employees worldwide, according to its website.

The HC also ordered to recover the money taken by Salman from different banks and to bring back the money from abroad.

Beximco Pharmaceuticals appealed the order to appoint a receiver, but the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court refused to stay the HC order in October.

A receiver is someone appointed as custodian of a person or entity's property, finances, general assets, or business operations. Receivers can be appointed by courts, government regulators, or private entities.

"My job will be to protect the interests of the company's employees and the country," said Amin, an executive director of the BB's Sustainable Finance Department.

He said he will try to prevent any irregularities in Beximco, which was founded in the 1970s by Salman and his brother Ahmed Sohail Fasihur Rahman.

The group is notorious in the financial sector for allegedly weaponising Salman's political influence to borrow and reschedule loans repeatedly.

Beximco Group took a Tk 25,000 crore loan from state-run Janata Bank, equivalent to about 950 percent of the lender's paid-up capital.

Around Tk 19,000 crore of the loan has now become defaulted.

As per its latest disclosure, Beximco Ltd, the largest company under the group's umbrella, incurred a loss of Tk 36 crore in the financial year ending in June 2024, reversing its trend of profits in recent years.

Beximco Ltd posted Tk 709 crore in after-tax profit in FY23, down from Tk 1,254 crore the previous year.

The company reported that its profits soared 1,400 percent year-on-year to Tk 660 crore in FY21.