No deal yet between Crown Cement, Matarbari Power Plant

Officials of the Matarbari Power Plant in Moheshkhali upazila of Cox's Bazar recently informed that they have not made any deal for selling fly ash to Crown Cement PLC, a listed cement maker in Bangladesh.

Coal Power Generation Company Bangladesh Limited, which is implementing the Matarbari ultra-supercritical coal-fired power project, had issued a clarification in this regard on November 6.

In a rejoinder to The Daily Star, the state-owned energy company said a confusion was created after Crown Cement made a price sensitive disclosure indicating plans to buy fly ash from the power plant.

The rejoinder came in response to an article, styled "Crown Cement to buy fly ash from Matarbari power plant", which was published by this newspaper on August 21.

As per the clarification, an international tender was placed on June 25 for buying fly ash from Matarbari Power Plant, which has two thermal units with an installed capacity of 600 megawatts each.

However, Crown Cement announced its decision to buy the key raw material for making cement ahead of the deadline for placing tenders on September 18, with The Daily Star report coming a day later.

This led to confusion among the company's stock investors and tender participants while also creating complexities in the tender evaluation process, it said.

Asked why the disclosure was made prematurely, Md Mozharul Islam, company secretary of Crown Cement, said being a listed company requires them to disclose all decisions taken by their board.

To participate in the tender, Crown Cement had formed a joint venture consortium with a third party that handled the entire process on behalf of the cement maker, he added.

On the other hand, a senior official of the Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission said listed companies only need to provide disclosures after taking decisions that may impact their share price.

"So, as the company was yet to make any official deal with the seller, it did not need to give any disclosure," he added.

Data of the Dhaka Stock Exchange shows that share prices of Crown Cement remained unchanged at Tk 74.5 from July to mid-November before rising to Tk 79.40 over the past 10 days.