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    Bela Automotives: The Curious Case of The Vanishing Sahid'

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    Maherban Haider
    Bela Automotives is struggling financially and was recently delayed in holding its annual general meeting due to a mysterious issue. The company requested permission from the SECP to hold its 2019 AGM, and the SECP claims it granted approval, but the approval letter was received by an unknown person named "Sahid" who does not work for the company. Bela Automotives has been struggling for years, consistently losing money, being on the defaulters list of the stock exchange since 2005, and facing other issues that have hurt its business. The disappearance of this "Sahid" person with the important approval letter created additional problems for the struggling company.

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    Bela Automotives: The Curious Case of The Vanishing Sahid'

    Uploaded by

    Maherban Haider
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    Bela Automotives is struggling financially and was recently delayed in holding its annual general meeting due to a mysterious issue. The company requested permission from the SECP to hold its 2019 AGM, and the SECP claims it granted approval, but the approval letter was received by an unknown person named "Sahid" who does not work for the company. Bela Automotives has been struggling for years, consistently losing money, being on the defaulters list of the stock exchange since 2005, and facing other issues that have hurt its business. The disappearance of this "Sahid" person with the important approval letter created additional problems for the struggling company.

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    Bela Automotives is struggling financially and was recently delayed in holding its annual general meeting due to a mysterious issue. The company requested permission from the SECP to hold its 2019 AGM, and the SECP claims it granted approval, but the approval letter was received by an unknown person named "Sahid" who does not work for the company. Bela Automotives has been struggling for years, consistently losing money, being on the defaulters list of the stock exchange since 2005, and facing other issues that have hurt its business. The disappearance of this "Sahid" person with the important approval letter created additional problems for the struggling company.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    26 views4 pages

    Bela Automotives: The Curious Case of The Vanishing Sahid'

    Uploaded by

    Maherban Haider
    Bela Automotives is struggling financially and was recently delayed in holding its annual general meeting due to a mysterious issue. The company requested permission from the SECP to hold its 2019 AGM, and the SECP claims it granted approval, but the approval letter was received by an unknown person named "Sahid" who does not work for the company. Bela Automotives has been struggling for years, consistently losing money, being on the defaulters list of the stock exchange since 2005, and facing other issues that have hurt its business. The disappearance of this "Sahid" person with the important approval letter created additional problems for the struggling company.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
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    9/29/2020 Bela Automotives: The curious case of the vanishing ‘Sahid’ - Profit by Pakistan Today

    FEATURED

    September 26, 2020

    Bela Automotives: The curious case of the


    vanishing ‘Sahid’
    The company is very upset that the SECP seems to have lost their mail. Also, possibly about being
    on the defaulters list of the PSX for the past 15+ years

    SEPTEMBER 26, 2020


    By Meiryum Ali

    Who is Sahid? Well, wouldn’t you like to know.

    It is also a question that the Securities & Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) would like to know, and also, the CEO of Bela
    Automotives.

    Let us backtrack a little. Bela Automotive was incorporated as a private limited company in November 1983, converted into a public
    limited company in August 1985, and its shares were quoted on the stock exchange in 1994. Mainly, Bela Automotives produces
    and markets automotive parts, bicycle parts, bolts, nuts, among other items. It is located at Hub, near Karachi. 

    Now, on February 14, 2020, the CEO of Bela Automotives, Abdul Mateen Allawala, sent a standard letter to the SECP, asking for the
    regulator to issue a direction for the holding of the annual general meeting of the company for 2019, on March 25, 2020. This letter
    was scanned and sent to the Pakistan Stock Exchange, as per regulations. 

    Clearly, the SECP also received the letter and sent an approval back. So far, so standard. Here is where it gets weird. In a letter dated
    September 3, 2020, Allawala explains: 

    “We have come to know that you have already sent us the approval for holding the AGM for the year 2019 and your permission was
    received by someone named “Sahid”. We are sorry to inform you that neither we have received any such permission, nor we have
    anyone by the name of “Sahid” in our o ce.”

    Allawala asked for the permission to be sent again, this time to hold the AGM on October 15, hopefully also including two email
    addresses, just in case the SECP messed up again. 

    But it also seemed in their effort to be thorough in their explanation, Bela Automotives could not hide their incredulity at the SECP.

    https://profit.pakistantoday.com.pk/2020/09/26/bela-automotives-the-curious-case-of-the-vanishing-sahid/?fbclid=IwAR2YmvhPQUAfulpwxcGAetXeYr… 1/4
    9/29/2020 Bela Automotives: The curious case of the vanishing ‘Sahid’ - Profit by Pakistan Today
    “Please also recheck our postal address just to make sure it reaches us this time. This has never happened before. We always
    receive your mail. We feel that either the address mentioned on the envelope was incorrect, or it reached the wrong place,” read the
    notice. 

    In case you are wondering, Bela Automotives is right: the SECP does usually send their mail correctly. For instance, on June 24,
    2019, Bela Automotives asked for an AGM for the year 2018. This was duly granted in writing by the SECP on July 1, 2019. 

    Which obviously begs the question: who is this mysterious Sahid who does not work at Bela Automotives, but seized the SECP
    letter? Actually, this is a good litmus test: if you, a random citizen, discovered an SECP direction to hold an AGM in your mail, would
    you A) call the SECP or the company in question to send the notice to the correct address, or B) pull a Sahid, and say you worked at
    said company, take the mail, and then disappear off the grid just for fun? 

    Pro t posed these questions to Abdul Mateen Allawala, who atly said he was uninterested in commenting on the matter. But
    wherever Sahid is, we hope he is happy: because Bela Automotives really needed that AGM to pull through (which has now been
    delayed to October of this year). The company is not doing well, to say the least.

    For one, it is on the Pakistan Stock Exchange’s (PSX) defaulters list. It has consistently made a loss for the last six years: a loss of
    Rs7.5 million in 2014, Rs8.1 million in 2015, Rs10.8 million in 2016, Rs9.8 million in 2017, Rs10.7 million in 2018, and Rs7.2 million
    in 2019. No matter the year, the cost of sales far outstrips the actual sales every year.

    Bela is, at least in theory, an automobile parts manufacturer. They do not maintain a website. We could not tell you which
    automobile assemblers they work with, though judging by the fact that they import parts from Taiwan and China, we suspect it is
    not any of the big three Japanese car assemblers. The company has been have been on the defaulters list of the PSX for several
    years now. We have found articles in Business Recorder dating back to 2005 describing them as defaulters. And if you could not
    make money in the Pakistani automobile business in 2005, well, maybe you need to nd a new line of work. 

    The company also suffered when the Income Tax department froze the company’s vendor’s bank accounts in October 2014. The
    matter was resolved in September 2015, but the damage had already been done. According to Bela’s version of events: “This order
    of freezing of accounts by the Income Tax was certainly illegal as it had added entries of 14 years old. The same order was also
    illegal as he denied the company depreciation. The entire order was illegal and it took us about one year to have the illegal add
    backs and depreciation to be allowed. During this period, besides monetary loss, it was a loss of goodwill of our company and we
    lost our customers.”

    Then, Bela Automotives pointed out that the various audits by the government departments, meant that the accounts of the
    company remain to be nalized. And nally, the company is still stuck on an ongoing settlement with HBL nance accountants,
    which has been ongoing since at least last year, and has still to be resolved. 

    So all in all, these are not the best of times for Bela Automotives. And on top of everything the company is struggling with, it now
    has to deal with some Sahid running off with their mail.

    Meiryum Ali
    The author is a member of the staff and can be reached at meiryum.ali@pakistantoday.com.pk

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    9/29/2020 Bela Automotives: The curious case of the vanishing ‘Sahid’ - Profit by Pakistan Today

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