KARACHI, Sept 26: Javed Omer Vohra & Company Limited (JOV & Co.) — the corporate stock brokerage firm — reported a loss after tax of Rs63.7 million for the year ended June 30, 2005.

The company released the accounts on Monday and the Board declared bonus issue at 50 per cent (one-for-two).

All the loss for the year and more accrued from the provision of a colossal sum of Rs826.4m labelled as “Loss on remeasurement of available for sale and held for trading investments to fair value on June 30”. A year ago, the company had made favourable adjustment of Rs290.3 million on that account.

Other than that, the company also posted around Rs100m more in financial charges, which rose to Rs154.5m for the year under review, compared with Rs42.9m the previous year. Current taxation also doubled to Rs10m from Rs5m last year and the effect for last year was further softened by favourable adjustment of Rs4.3m in respect of prior year taxation.

On the sunny side, the company booked capital gain on sale of investment — net amounting to Rs821.5m for the year under review, though that was substantially lower than Rs1.277bn earned a year ago. All in all, the company ended with loss per share of Rs3.18 in place of an earning of Rs80.34 last year.

The share in JOV& Co. shed Rs3.20 on Monday to close at Rs148.50. In just about two months from July 14, when the company stock stood tall at Rs271, it has lost 45pc of the value. In mid-August, the original sponsors sold their controlling stake of 7m shares or 35pc to ‘Crescent Standard Brokerage and Investment Services Limited’ at the price of Rs175 per share.

The new owners and its Associates also made a public offer for 0.2m shares of the target company at the same price of Rs175 per share to all the remaining shareholders to the extent of 0.2m shares, i.e. 1pc of the equity. The transaction was entered into under the ‘Listed Companies (Substantial Acquisition of voting shares and take-overs) Ordinance 2002’. The offer period for the buy-back of 0.2m shares was up to and inclusive of August 31, while the cut-off date for shareholders eligible for the offer was set at Aug 11. The Board which met on Monday, has called the Annual Shareholders’ meeting Oct 29.