The Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) is continuously monitoring compliance of rules and regulations on part of the corporate sector and as a result of this ongoing activity, one company found violating legal procedures was fined during the month of October 2005.
According to the SECP, the company, Al Jadeed Textile Mills Limited, was fined by the enforcement department of the Commission for Non-filing of accounts for the quarter ended March 31, 2005. A penalty of Rs 70,000 was imposed on its chief executive and directors.
Another company, First Capital Equities Limited, was advised to drop the agenda item regarding long-term investment from notice of annual general meeting (AGM) as the investee company had not yet been incorporated. A company, Chenab Textile Mills Limited was restrained from passing resolution, as it has not circulated statement of material facts as required under the law.
Apart from these actions, fourteen companies namely D G Khan Cement Company Limited, Cherat Cement Company Limited, Nishat Mills Limited, Callmate Telips Telecom Limited, Thal Limited, Brothers Textile Mills Limited, Dewan Hattar Cement Limited, Globe Textile Mills (OE) Limited, Ali Asghar Textile Mills Limited, Gharibwal Cement Limited, Dewan Cement Limited, Dandot Cement Company Limited, Bestway Cement Limited and Crescent Jute Products Limited had not disclosed material facts in the statements annexed with the notices of AGMs and were advised to disclose the information relating to the special business by way of Addenda.
Furthermore, six companies namely Pakistan Papersack Corporation Limited, Al-Abid Silk Mills Limited, Zulfeqar Industries Limited, Suraj Cotton Mills Limited, Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited and Hala Enterprises Limited were advised to provide material information, relating to the special business to the shareholders in the AGMs.
During October 2005, the SECP enforcement department resolved 192 of 276 complaints of various shareholders, whereat comments on the remaining 84 complaints have been sought from the concerned companies. The complaints mainly related to non-receipt of dividend warrants, non-encashment of dividend warrants, delay/non-transfer of shares and issue of duplicate shares, non-receipt of annual and interim accounts and wrongful deduction of Zakat, non-holding of AGM, non-circulation of notice of meeting etc.
Meanwhile, the SECP registered 264 companies during October 2005, as compared to registration of 202 companies during the corresponding month of the previous year, reflecting an increase of 31 percent.
According to SECP, of the 264 companies, 258 were limited by shares including nine public unlisted companies, 244 private companies and five single member companies.
Apart from these, two non-profit associations, three foreign companies and one company limited by guarantee was also registered.
The Company Registration Office (CRO) at Lahore registered highest number of 39 companies, followed by Karachi and Islamabad with 83 and 60 companies respectively.
CRO Faisalabad registered 14 companies, while Peshawar, Multan, registered 8 and 4 companies respectively with Quetta and Sukkur registering one each.
Out of the total, 51 companies were registered in the services sector, followed by 26 in communications, 21 in real estate development sector, 20 in trading and 19 in information technology sector.
Total authorised and paid-up capital of the 258 limited by shares companies registered during the month amounted to Rs 3,517.95 million and Rs 314.51 million respectively.
A total of 22 companies have also raised their authorised capital during the month of October, with an increment of Rs 1,363.8 million.
The month of October was a bit sluggish in registration mainly due to the overall slow activity in the holy month of Ramazan and also due to the October 8 earthquake. However, still, the total registrations showed an increase of 31 percent over the same month previous year, which is encouraging.