LAHORE: BankIslami Pakistan has sold its 100 per cent shareholding in its subsidiary BIPL Securities to AKD Securities at a price of Rs8.6 per share, according to the information disclosed through a recent bourse filing.

The deal raises a total of Rs663.2 million for the bank, which held more than 77.1m shares in the subsidiary. “The deal is finalised and we are waiting for regulatory approvals for completing the transaction,” a bank executive told Dawn on the condition of anonymity as he is not authorised to speak on policy matters.

The bank also sold another subsidiary, Bank Islami Modaraba, to the sponsors of Ghani Global Group for a total of Rs90m at a price of Rs11.25 per share. Earlier, the deal for the Modaraba with BRR investments had fallen through because regulatory approvals could not be secured.

The executive said the bank had disinvested both the subsidiaries to make its operations Sharia compliant. “These businesses (subsidiaries) were not considered Sharia-compliant and we could not even show their profits in our books. Hence, the board had decided to sell these off,” he added.

According to the bank’s unaudited accounts for the first quarter of 2021 to March, the group’s total assets had increased by 2.1pc, when compared with asset base of December 2020.

The group improved its profit after tax by 47.5pc to at Rs472m at the end of the quarter from Rs320m last year.

Published in Dawn, May 29th, 2021