The Pakistan Credit Rating Agency (Pacra) has sold minority stake in the rating agency to Mumtaz H Syed, currently chief executive of the Crosby Management Ltd.
The Pacra statement said in 2002, as a consequence of dis-investment of the shareholding of IFC and Fitch in Pacra, the majority shares were acquired by the Pacra management with the Lahore Stock Exchange, increasing its shareholding from 33.3 percent to 40 percent.
In order to enlarge the shareholder base and association of outside professionals, a minority stake has been sold by the Pacra management to Mumtaz H. Syed, currently chief executive of Crosby Asset Management Ltd, and Sheikh Muhammad Iqbal, a financial consultant.
This arrangement has prior approval of SECP, while this does not immediately lead to any change in the board composition, it is expected that in future after the changed shareholding is reflected in Board representation, this would provide additional professional input for policy-making.
The aforesaid change does not envisage any change in the management with the chairman, M. Khalil Mian and the chief executive, Javed Masud, retaining their respective positions.
The primary function of Pacra is to evaluate the capacity and willingness of a corporate entity to honour its debt obligations. The Pacra ratings reflect an independent, professional, and impartial assessment of the credit risk associated with a particular debt instrument or a corporate entity.
By providing a measurement of risk, Pacra's ratings facilitate investors in making prudent investment decisions after determining the acceptable rate of return at the given risk level. However, regardless of the type of rating, it is not a recommendation to purchase, sell or hold a security, in as much as it does not comment on the security's market price or suitability for a particular investor.