Local investors criticize PPL's share selling

KARACHI: Several questions start arising over the selling of government’s shares in Pakistan Petroleum Limited (PPL) and United Bank Limited (UBL), as investors are saying that PPL’s shares have been sold to local investors on higher price while UBL’s share have been sold out to foreign investors on cheap rates, ARY News reported.

According to investors government has done discrimination in selling of UBL and PPL shares. Economic analyst Muzammil Aslam told ARY News that single out foreign and local investors by adopting two different methods for stock selling of two different entities.

Meanwhile, former chairman of Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE) Arif Habib said foreign investors were targeted in the selling UBL’s share as compare to PPL in which local investors were targeted adding that’s why two different procedures of transaction were adopted for the two.

One of broker of Karachi Stock Market said, the Cabinet Committee on Privatization (CCOP) approved the sale of UBL’s share at Rs158 per share although its market value was Rs. 175 at that time. In contrast CCOP endorsed the strike price at Rs.219 per share for the PPL share float, which was higher by Rs14 from the base price and 93 per cent of its buyers are locals.