People’s Leasing liquidation: Depositors want money back by December

Depositors of the People's Leasing and Financial Services Limited want their money back by December this year.  

They are planning to meet the Bangladesh Bank governor and finance minister first to discuss the issue. If need be, they said they would meet Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and ask her to intervene in the matter. 

The non-institutional investors came to this decision at a meeting held at the Gulshan Club, Dhaka on Friday.  

People's Leasing initiated liquidation in June after losing the capacity to pay the depositors back, dealing a heavy blow to creditors. 

Liquidation is the process of shutting down a business and distributing its assets to claimants. It usually occurs when a company is insolvent, meaning it cannot pay its obligations when they are due. 

As company operations end, the remaining assets are used to pay creditors and shareholders, based on the priority of their claims.

Depositors of People's Leasing are not quite sure when they will get back the money invested in the non-banking financial institution. 

Earlier, the investors formed a 12-member ad-hoc committee with Md Anwarul Haque as its convener. Other members of the committee include joint conveners Kamal Ahmed and Rana Gosh, and Secretary Prashanta Kumar Paul.

A depositor, Samia Binte Mahbub, said, "We invested in an institution licenced by Bangladesh Bank. We even paid tax against our deposits. Who is responsible for taking care of our investment now?

"If we approach People's Leasing, they advise us to visit the Bangladesh Bank. If we approach the Bangladesh Bank, they say the matter is under consideration of the High Court," she added. 

The head office of People's Leasing, which started its journey in 1997, is in Motijheel, with two branch offices in Gulshan and Chittagong.

Of its total outstanding loans, amounting to Tk1,131 crores, Tk748 crores (66.14 percent of the total outstanding loans) of the institution has turned into non-performing loans.

Owing to deterioration of its financial health, the company could not give any dividend to its shareholders after 2014.

Some 67.84 percent of the company's total share is with the general shareholders, while 23.21 percent is with the sponsors and directors, 8.76 percent with institutions, and 0.19 percent with foreign investors.

On June 26 this year, the government directed the central bank to liquidate People's Leasing.