June 12: Securities Board of Nepal (SEBON) has directed Nepal Stock Exchange (NEPSE) to halt the share trading of Nepal Life Insurance Company Limited (NLIC). The regulator issued the directive citing that the NLIC has made the further public offering (FPO) plan public without obtaining approval from SEBON. NLIC publicised its FPO plan of issuing 3,096,429 units of shares at Rs 2,951.

NLIC announced the FPO plan by sending the information to NEPSE. Earlier, NEPSE directed companies to inform such influential decisions before the opening of the market. As per NEPSE’s directive, if such decisions are taken after the closure of the market, then such decisions have to be informed by the next day before the market opens. Apparently, NEPSE posted the information at 10:47 AM on June 9 in its website. SEBON expressed its fury over NEPSE’s for directly publicising the information.

“Why did NEPSE post such information that needs justification as the premium quoted is high,” says Dr Rewat Bahadur Karki, Chairman of SEBON. According to him, NEPSE should have consulted with SEBON before publicising the information.

Meanwhile, NEPSE clarifies that it took the action after evaluating the risk of potential leakage of the information which would have further manipulated the market. The stock exchange maintained that it was forced to make the information public as holding of such information for a long period would have meant otherwise. Nevertheless, both SEBON and NEPSE agree that the company’s acts were aimed towards manipulation of the market.  SEBON in this regard hinted of taking action against the related company. “How can the company fix a premium?,” questioned Karki.

However, NEPSE opined that SEBON is letting the companies to fix such prices. “It is SEBON’s weakness not to set limit for premium rates in FPOs as in IPOs,” says a NEPSE source. The source also mentioned that such problem would not have appeared if the regulator had revealed the setting of premium rates in earlier FPOs.