Curious case of Master Feed Agro stake succession
First Capital Securities CEO Kausar Al Mamun as the chief anti-money laundering compliance officer of the brokerage firm raised a red flag last week that there might have been attempts for embezzling a deceased director’s stake at Master Feed Agrotech Ltd, an SME company listed with the small-cap platforms of the bourses
First Capital Securities CEO Kausar Al Mamun as the chief anti-money laundering compliance officer of the brokerage firm raised a red flag last week that there might have been attempts for embezzling a deceased director's stake at Master Feed Agrotech Ltd, an SME company listed with the small-cap platforms of the bourses.
In a letter to the Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission, he presented a set of irregularities regarding the beneficiary owner (BO) account opened at his firm and used to get transferred one-fourth of the 70.5 lakh Master Feed Agro shares owned by its deceased director Rafiqul Alam.
Umma Habiba Yesmine, wife of Alam, got one-fourth of the total stake according to a succession certificate by the High Court and opened a BO account with First Capital Securities earlier this year. She sold and withdrew a portion of the shares.
Al Mamun, in his letter to the BSEC said digging deeper he found that Habiba used someone else's mobile number, email address of the company secretary of Master Feed Agro who also got the power of attorney to operate the BO account, while the nominee of the account was a junior employee of the company, while investors usually make family members a nominee.
He also wrote that during his efforts for authentication of the beneficiary of the BO accounts the company people did not cooperate, instead misbehaved with him and he filed a general diary with the nearby police station for safety.
Al Mamun wrote that during the conversation at his office, the lady was fully covered by an abaya and her answers were not satisfactory to prove that she was the actual person the succession certificate meant for the wife of Rafiqul Alam.
He drew the regulator's attention and requested for deeper enquiry, to ensure that the deceased director's stake was being transferred to the actual successor.
Meanwhile, 75% of Rafiqul Alam's stake was transferred to the account of his father Abdur Rashid, which he gave away to his second son Touhidul Alam who later became a director of the company and died from pancreas disease earlier this month.
On the other hand, Umma Habiba Yesmine, on Monday filed a complaint letter against her brokerage firm's CEO Kausar Al Mamun and said he misbehaved with them at his office.
She also complained that Al Mamun was not cooperating with her and her representatives to cash in the securities out of an alleged embezzlement intention and the regulator should act to ensure justice for her. She enclosed her legal documents of identity proof with the letter.
BSEC Spokesperson Rezaul Karim told TBS that the regulator would look into the matter.