Finance adviser Salehuddin Ahmed on Wednesday said that industries and power, energy and mineral resources ministries had agreed to offload certain portion of shares owned by the government in profit-making local and multinational companies on the country’s stock market.
But the ministries need consents from the boards of the companies, he said after a meeting on planned divestment of shares of the 10 selected companies at the secretariat in the capital Dhaka.
The finance adviser said that the companies had been asked to act quickly as the interim government wanted to start the process.
Of the selected firms, six are multinational companies — Unilever Bangladesh Ltd, Synovia Bangladesh Ltd (formerly Sanofi Bangladesh), Novartis (Bangladesh) Ltd, Nestlé Bangladesh PLC, Syngenta and Karnaphuli Fertiliser Company and the rest four are local companies— Karnaphuli Gas Distribution Company Ltd, North-West Power Generation Company Ltd, Pashchimanchal Gas Company Ltd and Sylhet Gas Fields Ltd.
The government holds about 40 per cent stakes in most of the multinational companies and almost 100 per cent in the local companies.
The current move by the finance ministry follows directives from a meeting by interim government chief adviser Professor Muhammad Yunus in May 2025 to rejuvenate the country’s ailing stock market.
It also follows an initiative taken in 2005 for bringing quality shares to the market after the market bubble and bust in 1996.
But the success of the initiative was limited to offloading some shares of the fully state-owned companies as well as multinational ones.
Following the share market collapse in December 2010 and January 2011, the initiative remained almost shelved over the past 15 years while the local share market continued to face the dearth of good shares.
Commenting on the previous failed attempts, the finance adviser said that the current initiative had moved further than before.
‘Earlier, it did not go this far,’ he said, adding that this time, the related ministries had given approval.
The finance adviser said that they could not force the multinational companies to divest shares that could give bad signals to the other international companies.
Investment Corporation of Bangladesh chairman Abu Ahmed, who was present at the meeting, expressed doubt about the success of the current initiative.
Like the previous occasions, the ministries have taken tactics of dilly-dallying, he alleged.
The ICB chairman suggested that the government provide tax incentive to multinational companies for allowing the government to divest some portion of its share in those companies.
He lamented that Unilever was listed in India, Pakistan and Thailand, but not in Bangladesh.
