Bangladesh Bank has asked five Shariah-based lenders merged into Sammilito Islami Bank PLC to declare the shares of their shareholders as zero after assessments showed their net asset values were negative.
In letters sent on Monday, the central bank directed First Security Islami Bank, Social Islami Bank, Global Islami Bank, Union Bank and EXIM Bank to write down all outstanding shares to zero under the Bank Resolution Ordinance 2025.
Bangladesh Bank spokesperson Arief Hossain Khan said the decision followed a valuation that found the share values of the five banks to be negative, leaving shareholders with no residual claim. “Considering the assessment, the shareholders’ shares have been written down to zero,” he said.
Bangladesh Bank Governor Ahsan H Mansur had earlier made clear that shareholders of the five banks would not receive any stake in the merged entity, citing a negative net asset value per share of around Tk350 to Tk420.
“The central bank is not taking them into consideration, as they hold zero liability,” he said at the time. “No shareholder of the merged banks will get anything.”
As a result, shareholders of the troubled lenders have lost hundreds of crores of taka. The total loss is estimated at around Tk4,500 crore based on the face value of the shares issued. At market prices, the loss is about Tk1,022 crore, as the shares had been trading well below face value.
Following the merger order, the Dhaka and Chattogram stock exchanges suspended trading of the five banks’ shares last month.
On November 30, the banking regulator granted the final licence to Sammilito Islami Bank, formed through the merger, making it the country’s largest state-owned Shariah-based lender.
Bangladesh Bank said the approval was part of a broader banking sector reform programme launched in September 2024 to restore governance, ensure accountability and bring discipline back to the financial system.
Under the approved structure, the authorised capital of the merged bank will be Tk40,000 crore, with 4,000 crore shares of Tk10 each, while paid-up capital will stand at Tk35,000 crore.
Of this, Tk20,000 crore has already been provided by the government and designated as Class-A shareholding, according to a draft finance ministry notification. Another Tk7,500 crore will come from specially converted permanent deposits of depositors of the transferring banks and financial institutions, designated as Class-B shares. The remaining Tk7,500 crore will be raised through specially converted deposits of other institutional depositors, excluding banks, financial institutions and multinational companies, designated as Class-C shares.
