The Dhaka Stock Exchange said on Sunday that investors whose funds were embezzled by Crest Securities Limited would get back their money soon. The DSE made the comments at a virtual press conference on Sunday. DSE managing director Kazi Sanaul Hoq said that shares of 21,000 investors worth Tk 82 crore had already been frozen. The investors would be allowed to transfer these shares with a link account to other brokerage houses. The bourse was yet to know about how much money the house had embezzled, he said. The bourse would soon be informed about the funds in consolidated customer accounts of Crest Securities, he said. The house has 17 consolidated bank accounts. The affected investors would also get their money back from those cash accounts, Sanaul said. DSE found only Tk 2 lakh in the dealer account. If the bourse does not find enough funds in the consolidated accounts to pay back the investors’ arrears, the bourse would sell the TREC of the brokerage house to mitigate the liabilities. An estimated 75 per cent of the shares of each brokerage houses are locked-in under the Central Depository Bangladesh Limited system. Besides, the bourse also asked the affected investors to inform the DSE about their claims very soon. Sanaul said that the monitoring of brokerage houses would be strengthened. He also said that there were some lapses in the integrity system that would also be addressed soon. Meanwhile, DSE officials also said that the board of directors of the bourse formed a five-member committee on the day to probe into the matter. The committee was asked to submit the report within five working days. Crest Securities Limited has been closed since Tuesday after its chairman and managing director Md Shahid Ullah went into hiding. The bourse suspended its depository participant account and also requested the Bangladesh Bank to freeze the bank accounts of the company and its directors. A number of investors complained that the directors of the brokerage house had sold off their (investors) shares without informing them. On finding the office locked, they looked into their BO accounts at the Central Depository Bangladesh Limited and found their portfolios empty, the investors said. Some investors also said that the brokerage house had taken money from them on the pretext of investing the funds in the house, but now they had lost everything. Meanwhile, the Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission at an emergency commission meeting on Sunday decided to re-launch inspection into the brokerage house as per securities rules.
