February 16, 2008	Saturday	Safar 08, 1429

KARACHI, Feb 15: Mr Shaukat Tarin would cease to hold the office of chairman of the Karachi Stock Exchange from next month, it was learnt on Friday.

A director on the KSE board observed that Mr Tarin would revert to his old role of a banker on taking up the top job at Saudi Pak Commercial Bank Limited.

The KSE has not notified the imminent change through a formal notice to its members, but Mr Tarin confirmed to Dawn that he would relinquish the posts of chairmanship of both the KSE and the National Commodity Exchange Limited on assuming the office of chief executive of Saudi Pak Bank in March.

He said that the State Bank of Pakistan had ‘advised’ him to choose either of the two roles.

But even before that, he himself had decided to step down from chairmanship of KSE, since holding dual offices of the KSE chairman and CEO of a stock market listed bank did create a perception of ‘conflict of interest’.