Brummer & Partners to sell 24.93pc shares in Runner Auto

​Brummer & Partners (Bangladesh) Limited, a concern of Sweden’s largest hedge fund manager Brummer & Partners, has decided to sell off its entire shares of 24.93 per cent in Runner Automobiles Limited gradually.

The foreign strategic partner of Runner Automobiles has recently applied to the Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission seeking permission to sell off the shares.

Brummer & Partners (Bangladesh) Limited has run a fund called Brummer Frontier PE II (Mauritius) to provide long term growth equity capital to companies in Bangladesh.

Earlier on September 28 in 2013, Brummer Frontier made an equity investment of Tk 105 crore through buying 13,478,261 shares at an issue price of Tk 77.91 each. The number of shares now stands at 28,304,347 after the company declared bonus for shareholders.

Sponsor-directors hold 50 per cent shares of Runner where Brummer holds 24.93 per cent or 28,304,347 shares, according to the latest annual financial report of Runner.

Runner’s paid-up capital is worth Tk 113.5 crore and has 11.35 crore in outstanding shares.

The board of Runner now comprises of ten members, including two directors nominated by Brummer Frontier PE.

Runner Automobiles director Khalid Quadir, also the chief executive officer and founding partner of Brummer & Partners (Bangladesh), told New Age that investments in a company could not be for a lifetime.

After staying as an investor for eight years, it now wants to exit the company by selling its shares gradually, he said.

Quadir also said that it might take years to sell off the holdings so that price movement remains stable.

There is no reason worth mentioning behind the decision, he said.

Brummer Frontier PE is a private limited company incorporated in Mauritius and provides long-term growth equity capital to companies in Bangladesh.

The fund’s investors include the International Finance Corporation, CDC (a fund owned by the UK Government), Norfund (a fund owned by the Norwegian Government), FMO (a fund owned by the Netherland Government) and other international financial institutions.

Runner Automobiles made debut on the stock exchange on May 21 in 2019 after raising Tk 100 crore through the IPO book building method.

Shares of the company traded at Tk 64.7 each on Tuesday.

Source: ​newagebd