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Once a household name in rural Bangladesh, Rani Marka Dheutin has been out of market for at least four years. The corrugated iron sheet's manufacturer, Appollo Ispat Complex is now seeking a government bailout and financial support from banks to come back into operation.
Its fall from the leading position in the industry had been gradual, beginning even before it was listed in the stock market in 2013.
After all these years, it finally disclosed on Thursday that its debt burden ballooned to approximately Tk 9 billion (including penal interest). There are additional liabilities of Tk 2 billion.
Along with the business, Appollo Ispat seems to have wiped out its online presence. Its website could not be found. Neither was there any company secretary's name or contact number on the website of the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE).
The company has recently been labelled as junk stock on the DSE for being out of production, while stock investors still wonder how the well-performing, popular company turned into a loss-making venture.
In a 2020 media interview, Evana F Mohammad, a director of the company, said fund embezzlement by a former director, Md Sirajul Haque, who had been looking after the business, brought the company to its knees.
Haque sold land and 13 truck-loaded finished goods without informing the company and fled to Canada with Tk 2.50 billion.
The company had filed a case against Mr Haque.
A top official of Appollo Ispat passed the company's confidential information to a major competitor, which, Ms Evana said, also played a role behind the company's plunge into despair.
Its sales dropped below Tk 1.60 billion for the first nine months of FY19. At the year end, the company incurred a loss of more than Tk 927 million whereas its profit was Tk 753 million at its peak in 2016.
For the last four years, the company has not published any financial data and there has been no general meeting of shareholders.
From the present state, it is hard to fathom that the company had once seen years of fame and glory.
Appollo Ispat was the pioneer in corrugated iron sheet business in Bangladesh. It started commercial operation in 1997 by establishing a modern and sophisticated galvanising line.
It has a plant over 16.8 acres of land at Shimrail under Narayanganj district to manufacture iron sheets. In the wake of growing demand, the company set up another galvanising line in 2002 and a cold-rolled manufacturing unit in 2005.
Appollo Ispat was generating more than Tk 5 billion in annual revenue before going public.
The company got listed in 2013 by raising Tk 2.20 billion, mainly to repay bank loans of Tk 1.53 billion and set up a new galvanising plant for capacity expansion.
However, there was opposition to the company's listing for its failure to repay loans taken from five commercial banks amounting to Tk 240 million.
Due to the high debt burden, some stock market investors were against the listing. Even the then finance minister wrote to the stock market regulator not to approve Appollo Ispat's IPO.
The stock market regulator suspended the IPO subscription only to withdraw the suspension order five months later.
Appollo Ispat launched a 60,000-tonne advanced radiant tube furnace technology-based galvanising plant in April 2018. The plant was expected to fetch half the sales volume.
The company posted profits until FY18 before things went downhill.
Appollo Ispat's stock collapsed below Tk 2.50 in 2020, from its debut peak at Tk 41. The stock has been stuck at the floor at Tk 8.20 since September last year.