The Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan has found Treet Corporation’s Treasury Manager Jawad Ahmed guilty of insider trading, according to the SECP order made public on Tuesday.
The accused bought shares of the company before a corporate announcement and sold them right after. Ahmed was fined Rs200,000 and also directed to pay a sum of Rs832,140 to the funds of Treet.
The apex regulator has fined at least ten officials or companies in similar cases during 2009-10, according to the company’s website.
The regulator caught the company’s stock price increasing significantly twice during July 2009 and May 2010.
In the first span of trade, the stock jumped 85.5 per cent to Rs590 from Rs318 in 16 trading session during July and August. The second massive jump of 146.3% was witnessed during January to February, 21 trading sessions in total.
The trading data of the second trading session shows that the accused person’s father Mushtaq Ahmed bought 7,050 shares of Treet on January 29, 2010 – before a corporate announcement that declared a cash dividend and bonus shares – and sold 7,000 two weeks later after the announcement was made.
The company announced a cash dividend of Rs5 per share and bonus issue of nine shares for every one share, insider news that Ahmed used in his favour. The accused made a gain of Rs1 million from this play.
The account that was used for trading was opened just eight days before the board meeting of Treet, according to the documents.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 22nd, 2011.
COMMENTS
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ