The New Nation - Internet Edition

BUSINESS REPORT

Chairman of ONE Bank Ltd Sayeed Hossain Chowdhury yesterday denied the accusation of holding of anonymous shares worth Tk 26 crore of the bank published in a section of newspapers recently.

Addressing a press conference at National Press Club in the city, he said that the authorities concerned had investigated the matter of possessing anonymous shares of ONE Bank Ltd in March 2000 after some newspapers published the same news at that time, which was proved false and fabricated.

Chowdhury said ONE Bank was established on May 12, 1999 and started journey as a full-fledged commercial bank from July 14 of that year with six Bangladeshis and five expatriate Bangladeshis after receiving the banking operation licence from Bangladesh Bank. 'I became a shareholder and director of the bank through receiving 25,000 shares from my wife,' he said.

Referring to the background of establishing ONE Bank Ltd, Chowdhury, who is also the chairman of HRC, said one of his friends, Ashoka Dasgupta, had proposed him in mid-1998 to become an entrepreneur of the bank. "Since I was a sponsor and shareholder/director of a general insurance company, I could not become the director of a banking company. That is why my wife was attached to the bank. After several weeks he gave me a proposal to collect a number of sponsors as several sponsors of the proposed bank left for establishing another bank receiving permission from Bangladesh Bank," he said.

"But, I could not succeed to make anyone of my friends or acquaintances agree to become the sponsor of the bank. I informed Ashoka Dasgupta about the matter. However, he again proposed to help me. Otherwise, he said it would not be possible to set up the bank," he said.

"After a couple of days, he (Ashoka Dasgupta) again proposed to help me and suggested me to contact with my expatriate Bangladeshi friends and colleagues to make them agree to invest in Bangladesh, because I was at abroad from 1974 to 1987."

Later, he said he gave proposals to a dozen of his expatriate friends and colleagues. "Finally, I was able to make five of my expatriate friends agree to invest in paid up capital for ONE Bank Ltd," he said.

However, the expatriate Bangladeshis agreed to become sponsors for investing in the capital of the proposed bank on several conditions, including (i) They would invest after receiving the licence from the Bangladesh Bank and before that "I would be able to take short-term loans from everyone of them, and (ii) After receiving licence from the Bangladesh Bank, "I would have to provide guarantee to their investments, because they wanted to be expatriates."

"At the beginning I was reluctant to accept their conditions. But, Ashoka Dasgupta assured me saying that the then prime minister and finance minister will provide guarantee to the money invested by the expatriates. He (Ashoka Dasgupta) made an arrangement of holding a meeting with the then Finance Minister SAMS Kibria at his secretariat office room to boost my self-confidence and interest for establishing the bank," he said.

Chowdhury said later he held a meeting with the then Bangladesh Bank Governor Dr Farashuddin Ahmed. "At that meeting I informed him about my meeting with the late Finance Minister. Hearing this the Bangladesh Bank Governor awarded me the formal licence for launching the ONE Bank Ltd," he said.

Subsequently, he said he was able to provide personal loans in the name of six local and five expatriate Bangladeshis after formation of the company. After receiving licence for ONE Bank Ltd from the Bangladesh Bank as proposed by Ashoka Dasgupta, the five expatriate Bangladeshis sent remittances to their respective accounts with the local banks.

He mentioned that the five NRBs were still the members of the board of the directors of the bank and he had no anonymous shares in their names.

Claiming the reports published in two vernacular dailies about holding anonymous shares as 'false and fabricated,' where he was shown as possessing 35 per cent of the total shares of ONE Bank Ltd, he said he was holding less than 10 per cent of total shares of the bank.

Chowdhury also said he was holding majority of the shares of three, out of five companies. Expatriate Bangladeshis hold majority of the shares of rest of the two companies, he said.