The New Nation - Internet Edition

The government will sell its 25 per cent share in a state gas company worth about Tk 2.15 billion ($32 million) at a face value of Tk 100 each, a senior official said on Thursday.

These shares, or 25 per cent of the fully-government-owned Titas Gas Transmission and Distribution Company will make their debut in the Dhaka and Chittagong stock exchanges on July 2, said M.Tamim, Special Assistant to the Chief Adviser for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry.

The aim of the offloading to the public through the bourses was to boost the country's capital market and industrial initiatives, Tamim said at a meeting of investors and energy officials.

"To have a good health of the capital market and also to assist industrial ventures the government has decided to offload 25 percent of its stake in the Titas to the people," Tamim said.

The number of shares on offer would be 21,411,728 shares worth nearly Tk 2.15 billion, from its existing paid up capital of Tk 8.7 billion ($127 million), said Salahuddin Ahmed khan, chief executive officer of the Dhaka Stock Exchange Limited.

Titas Gas, the fifth state-owned company to be listed with the stock exchanges, presently has nearly 74 per cent market shares in distributing gas to end users and daily average gas supply quantity is about 1,300 million cubic feet per day.

Earlier, state-run Jamuna Oil Company and Meghna Petroleum offloaded 30 per cent of their shares each in January this year, and Dhaka Electric Supply Company and Power Grid Company Bangladesh, also state owned, sold off 25 per cent shares each in 2006.

"The government is committed to ease the pressure on banking system for investment for the manufacturing firms and for that is continuously offloading the shares even of profit-making entities," Tamim said.

Titas, incorporated on November, 1964, as public limited company, with Tk 9.72 billion net assets and Tk 2.6 billion profit after tax, has a sales growth of about 13 per cent in the year fiscal year to June 2007, officials said.

"The government will offload more shares of another 21 state-owned companies including nine from energy and power to make a balance between demand and supply in the capital market," Tamim said.