The Board of Directors of the Lahore Stock Exchange (LSE) is scheduled to meet on Tuesday, January 15, 2008 to elect the new chairman of the exchange for the year 2008. The LSE board comprises five elected/member directors and four non-member directors, who are nominated by the Securities & Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP).
The SECP-nominated directors are Ibrar A Mumtaz, Chairman, Fazal Din Pharma Plus; Arif Saeed, CEO of Dar-e-Salam Textile Mills Ltd; Sikandar M Khan, Chairman, Millat Tractors Ltd and Walid Iqbal, advocate High Court.
The five member-directors who were elected unopposed are Asif Baig Mirza, Muhammad Nadeem Ijaz, Dr Arslan Razzaq, Gul Abdullah Dhami and Ammar ul Haq. According to rules and regulations, only an outside director could be chairman of the exchange. Ibrar A Mumtaz, a nominated director, who had been elected chairman of the exchange in 2006, could be re-elected for the slot for the new term, sources told Business Recorder on Monday.
Ibrar, however, on a number of occasions had told media that he just wanted good governance and transparency in the affairs of the exchange, but was not interested in holding office of the chairman of the exchange. However some insiders say that Arif Saeed is also a potential candidate for the slot.
Ibrar was also a candidate for the office in 2007, but despite having clear support of the then LSE management and the SECP authorities, he failed to achieve the objective and lost the battle to Hamesh Khan, another nominated director and president Bank of Punjab, who had the backing of all five elected directors.
Sources say the elected directors will as usual play a key role in the election and may give touch time to the SECP authorities, who will strive hard to get elected the person of their choice. Last year they had also exerted pressure on the member directors to vote for Ibrar A Mumtaz but could not convince them.