Ibn Sina Trust, owner of the Ibn Sina Hospital, has decided to sell off all its shares in Islami Bank Bangladesh Ltd., which is largest private bank in the country. In an announcement published in the Dhaka Stock Exchange website yesterday. the trust said that it has expressed intention to sell its entire holdings of 3,60,77,391 shares of the Islami Bank at prevailing market price (in the block market) through the stock exchanges (DSE & CSE) of the country within the next 30 working days.

The value of the share is estimated at Tk 100 crore. In the last working day, the share price was Tk 26.10 for each Islami Bank share. However, Ibn Sina has not yet issued an official statement as to why it has decided to sell off its entire stake in Islami Bank. Local institutional investors own 9.16 per cent of the shares in the bank, and foreign investors own 26.37 per cent, while public investors have 17.77 per cent stake in the bank.

Before this announcement, Islami Bank Chairman Arastoo Khan left the board a few days back. The Ibn Sina move comes nearly a year after the Saudi Arabia-based Islamic Development Bank (IDB), one of the two foreign investors in the Islami Bank, sold off two-thirds of its shares in the bank, shrinking its stake in the bank to 2.1% from 7.5%. However, despite reduction of shareholding, the IDB remains on board.

In January 2017, Ibn Sina, the largest local corporate shareholder in Islami Bank, left the bank’s board during a massive reshuffle of the bank’s management.