Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) on Friday approved the Corporate Social Responsibility Voluntary Guidelines, 2013 aimed at encouraging body corporate to align their business strategies with their social responsibilities. The Corporate Social Responsibility Voluntary Guidelines is a preliminary step towards introducing broad parameters for accountability and reporting of CSR activities. These Guidelines are being published as guidance document for all companies. Under the Guidelines, Board of Directors of registered entities are encouraged to take ownership for formulation, adoption and implementation of CSR policy of a company. The Guidelines recommend that CSR policy be fully endorsed by Board of Directors of Company and that such policy is embedded in the vision and strategy of the company. CSR governance benchmark table has been added at the end of Guidelines that shall facilitate companies to assess their performance and for peer review. Prese...

The Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan has issued a notification under Section 15D of the 1969 Securities and Exchange Ordinance read with section 40B of the 1997 Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan Act to specify the manner and form for the disclosure of inside information by the listed companies and by the persons discharging managerial responsibilities in listed companies. The notification will result in clearly defining the roles and responsibilities of the company as well as the person possessing the information. It also describes the obligation of stock exchanges with respect to dissemination of information so that no person takes undue advantage of the inside information. Now the Commission will be in a better position to prosecute the persons involved in insider trading as the presence of newly introduced statutory obligation will restrain the persons alleged of insider trading from citing legal justifications for their illegal acts in the presence...

The board of directors (BoD) of MCB Bank Ltd has declared final cash dividend of Rs 3 and 10 percent bonus shares, in addition to interim cash dividends of Rs 10 already paid for the year ended December 31, 2012, a statement of the bank said on Thursday. Earnings per share (EPS) for the year came to Rs 22.77 as compared to Rs 21.12 for December 31, 2011. Return on assets came to 2.95 percent, return on equity was recorded at 25.07 percent and book value per share improved to Rs 95.84. The BoD met under the chairmanship of Mian Mohammad Mansha to review the performance of the bank and approve the financial statements. For the year 2012, the bank reported profit before tax of Rs 32.054 billion and profit after tax of Rs 20.941 billion with an increase of 2.0 percent and 8.0 percent, respectively. Total assets of MCB Bank Limited grew by 17 percent to Rs 765.899 billion. The analysis of the asset mix highlights 27 percent increase in investments to Rs 402.069 billion ...

In order to provide maximum facilitation to investors and to bring more transparency and accuracy to the KYC (Know Your Client) process, the SECP has taken the initiative of establishing a Centralized KYC Organization (CKO) and has designated the National Clearing Company of Pakistan Limited (NCCPL) to function as the CKO. The CKO shall develop a centralized web-based system named KYC Information System and maintain separate and exclusive database for the storage of KYC information entered by the market intermediaries.  At present, all entities in the capital market are performing registration/account opening process for their clients separately, which leads to duplication of effort and waste of resources. At the same time investors desirous of opening accounts with different intermediaries for the purpose of trading/investing/dealing in the capital market have to repeatedly undergo the KYC process. The CKO shall develop a centralized web-based system named KYC Inf...

The Public Sector Companies (Corporate Governance) Rules have been approved by the SECP Policy Board. The rules are aimed at improving the governance framework of public sector companies (PSCs) in order to bring about greater transparency and plugging the huge losses of public sector enterprises, which are in the range of Rs400 billion per year. Held on Thursday at the SECP head office, the board meeting was chaired by Mr. Wajid Rana, the federal finance secretary. The board consists of the SECP chairman, federal secretaries for finance, law and commerce, and deputy governor, State Bank.   The rules have been based on the Code of Corporate Governance issued by the SECP as well as on the recommendations contained in the Guidelines on Corporate Governance of State-Owned Enterprises issued by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The salient features of the rules are o          The appointment of the...

 The Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) has established a task force to identify weaknesses and gaps in the current protection mechanism for the shareholders of the companies and suggest ways and means to overcome these through shareholder activism. The decision has come in the light of the prevalent international practices. In Malaysia, Minority Shareholder Watchdog Group (MSWG) or Badan Pengawas Pemegang Saham Minoriti Berhad, was set up in 2000 as a government initiative to be part of a broader capital market framework to bring about awareness and help protect the interests of minority shareholders through shareholder activism. The MSWG is a professional body licensed under the 2007 Capital Markets and Services Act. It is a self-governing and non-profit body, funded predominantly by the Capital Market Development. It is an important channel for market discipline, encouraging good governance among public listed companies with the objective of raisi...

The Karachi stock market finally managed to close above the psychological level of 17,000 points on Thursday due to heavy buying driven by good corporate results. The Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE) 100-share index gained 147.69 points or 0.87 percent to close at 17,056.36 points as compared to 16,908.67 points of the previous session. The KSE 30-share index increased 125.28 points to close at 13,931.66 points as compared with 13,806.38 points of the previous session.   “Finally the market managed to close above 17,000 points level,” said Topline Sec dealer Samar Iqbal. “Institutional buying and good corporate results helped the equity prices to improve by approximately 1.0 percent.” Higher than expected earning announcement by Engro Foods helped the market sentiment, she said and added that second-tier cement stocks performed well as investors are expecting healthy profits for the quarter ending in December.   The market turnover went up by 24.38 percent and...