Templeton selling Commercial Bank stocks
The Templeton Fund, an emerging market equity fund has been selling its holding in the Commercial Bank (Commercial) and possibly some other investments owing to a range of issues the fund is facing in the region and the attractiveness of the European and US markets, officials and stockbrokers say.Commercial, the only local commercial bank with the largest foreign ownership at some 38 per cent, saw large transactions being affected over the past month and now its foreign ownership has shrunk by 6 per cent to 32 per cent, a Commercial official told the Business Times. Analysts said that Templeton seems to be focusing on western markets.
Commercial’s major foreign shareholders in the top 10 slot as at September last year were IFC, Templeton, Wasatch and Aberdeen (which has multiple accounts holding Commercial stocks).On 29 December last year some 1,075,911 shares of net foreign sales happened and it spilled on to the New Year on Monday with 1 million of net foreign selling on this stock.”Templeton has been unloading our shares continuously,” a Commercial official told the Business Times.
On Thursday another large transaction to the tune of 633,110 shares was sold and again brokers said that majority of this is from Templeton. Overall, some adverse budget proposals have triggered heavy foreign selling in local stocks, during the past month, spilling over to this year, analysts say. The budget had some negative proposals such as getting banks to discontinue their leasing operations and confining this business to leasing firms. Also brokers say that the corporate tax rate was increased by 2 per cent to 30 per cent while others are taxed at 15 per cent.