Members of Karachi Stock exchange (KSE) seem to have lost interest in the affairs of the ill-regulated and therefore volumes-starved bourse as turnover for 2012 board of directors election declined by 19 per cent this year. Last year, some 170 members had casted their votes and had elected Zafar Siddiq Moti, Abdid Ali Habib, Haji Ghani Haji Usman, Abdul Majeed Adam, Mohammad Sohail, Ashraf Bava, Azhar Ahmad Batla, Mohammad Azam Khan and Muhammad Qasim Lakhani to the kSe board for 2011.
Thursday saw only 138 of the total 200 members taking part in voting held at KSE on Thursday to elect five candidates to directorship of the exchange for calendar year 2012. Out of a total of seven candidates, one withdrew his nomination before the commencement of balloting, leaving six candidates to contest the election. Of total 138 members who casted their votes, three ballot papers were declared invalid and 135 ballot papers were declared as valid.
Based on the results, the five candidates who were declared as successful, in order of the votes secured, are: Abdul Majeed Adam (125), Muhammad Yasin Lakhani (123), Yaqoob Habib (122), Saeed Ahmed Butt (104), and Haji Ghani Haji Usman (102).
As per articles of association of the exchange, four non-member directors are required to be nominated by Securities and exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) for the next term from whom the next chairman shall be elected by the board.
Nadeem Naqvi, who is holding the office of managing director, is the tenth director on the KSE board. Management of KSE, in a statement, appreciated contribution made by outgoing directors during the year 2011 and welcomed the incoming directors on the KSE board for next term. According to market observers, trading volumes at KSE had decreased to a 10-year low during the outgoing 2011 due to controversial levies like Capital Gains Tax (CGT). “Buying selling of shares, floating of new companies and fund raising through right shares, all remained depressed in 2011,” said Farhan Mahmood, an analyst at Topline Securities.
He said market players remained concerned about re-introduction of CGT after a gap of more than three decades, its understanding and last but not the least its cumbersome calculations. The market cap based benchmark KSE 100 index fell five per cent in 2011 while free float based KSE 30 index came down by 11 per cent. MSCI Pakistan index was also down 16 per cent in the outgoing year. The value of Karachi bourse trimmed down by Rs 302 billion or 9 percent as market capitalisation reached Rs2.97 trillion ($33bn) at the end of 2011.
