What caused SEBL shares’ jump? Even CEO is baffled

When there were hardly any buyers for most of the stocks on Sunday, Southeast Bank (SEBL) had plenty.

On Sunday, the shares of only two of the 33 banks listed on the stock market advanced. Among the two is Southeast Bank.

The bank’s share price rose nearly 5 percent to Tk 14.80 accounting for over 10 percent of total turnover worth Tk 682 crore.

According to Dhaka Stock Exchange data, prices dropped for 345 issues or over 87 percent of companies on the Dhaka stock market on Sunday and only 21 stocks advanced. Southeast Bank was one of those 21 lucky stocks.

Was there any reason for this dramatic rise in Southeast Bank’s share price or did it happen on rumours?

Even officials of the bank were puzzled by the outshining performance. “We are also surprised that the share price of Southeast Bank has risen so abnormally in a single day,” M Kamal Hossain, managing director of the bank told the Business Insider Bangladesh.

“To my knowledge, there is no reason behind such an increase in price. It’s a big market. We do not yet know how the share price of the bank increased so much on the day of a downtrend in the capital market,” he said.

“However, by Monday we will know which brokerage house or who bought these shares,” he added.

Earlier, on April 30, Southeast Bank Limited declared an 8 percent cash and 4 percent stock dividend for its shareholders for the year ended on December 31, 2021.

The company reported EPS of Tk 1.50 and consolidated NAV per share of Tk 25.22 during the period.

Capital market analyst Prof Mohammad Helal suspects shady deals on the matter by saying, “The way a bank’s share price and turnover jumped on such a dull day can’t be normal. There must be some manipulation behind this.” 

He further said the Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission (BSEC) should bring those who are involved in gambling even in such a difficult time in the capital market under severe punishment.