Haque Specialized Group's News

Asian shares were mixed in lacklustre trading on Tuesday, as markets searched for a dominant theme, weighing currency fluctuations, signs of growing protectionism and other uncertainties. Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 slipped 0.3 per cent to 19,459.16 and Australia's S&P/ASX 200 was unchanged at 5,779.10. South Korea's Kospi added 1.1 per cent to 2,181.09.  Hong Kong's Hang Seng rose 0.3 per cent to 24,585.50, while the Shanghai Composite added 0.2 per cent to 3,256.37. European markets mostly fell overnight.  The S&P 500 index lost 0.2 per cent to 2,373.47. The Dow Jones industrial average was almost unchanged at 20,905.86. The Nasdaq composite was also flat, at 5,901.53. Benchmark US crude added 19 cents to $49.10 a barrel in New York. Brent crude, used to price international oils, rose 20 cents to $51.82 a barrel in London. The dollar rose to 112.74 yen from 112.53 yen. The euro slipped to $1.0758 from $1.0760, according to AP.....

Published at: 2017-03-21 00:00:05

Police arrested two activists of Jamaat-e-Islami at Darimagura village in Magura Sadar upazila on Monday night. Tipped off, a team of police conducted a drive at the village and arrested Jamaat men Esak Ali, 22, and Ilias Ali, 20, said Azmal Huda, officer-in-charge of Sadar Police Station, reports UNB. They were wanted in a case filed under the Explosive Substance Act, the OC said.....

Published at: 2017-03-21 00:00:05

Police arrested some 65 leaders and activists of Jamaat-e-Islami and its student wing Islami Chhatra Shibir from near Shelidah Kuthibari, the country house of Rabindranath Tagore, in Kumarkhali upazila, on Monday. Tipped off, a join team of Kumarkhali Police Station and Detective Branch (DB) of police of the district launched a drive in the area in the afternoon and arrested the 65 Jamaat-Shibir men along with a good number of jihadi books and leaflets, said additional police super (ADC) of Kushtia Joynal Abedin. The arrestees gathered at Shelidah Kuthibari in the name of a picnic and later were holding a secret meeting near the picnic spot in a bid to carry out subversive activities, said ADC Abedin. They hail from different areas of Kushtia and nearby districts; according to UNB.....

Published at: 2017-03-21 00:00:05

Most of the 26 selected state-owned enterprises (SoEs) expressed their unwillingness to offload shares, officials said, frustrating top-level government directives for feeding the securities-starved bourses on good chips. The minutes of a meeting held at the Ministry of Finance revealed that almost all the SoEs did not make any positive response towards floatation of their shares on the stock market. Several of them said boards of the public enterprises find that they cannot comply with the existing listing rules of Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission (BSEC) and bourses in terms of offloading their shares for public subscription while others mentioned different excuses. Finance ministry sources said the chief executive officers (CEOs) of the SoEs announced different deadlines repeatedly to offload their shares, but failed to comply with those. Currently, the government is trying hard to get shares of the 26 SoEs offloaded on the capital market. "But the ministries and divisions concerned are extremely reluctant towards offloading," a high official of the bank and financial institutions division told the FE Sunday. Progress in the SoEs divesting themselves was found disappointing as only eight have offloaded a portion of their shares to date. Offloading activities of 29 SoEs have been postponed, according to data available with the finance ministry.  An inter-ministerial meeting is likely to be held this week with the SoEs concerned to review the implementation progress with the finance minister in the chair. A senior MoF official said the board members of the SoEs show reluctance in going public despite directives from a top seat of the government. Possibility of offloading shares of the rest of the SoEs is gradually fading away for some procedural complexities. As a result, the government could not float their shares on the capital market despite repeated suggestion from experts and investors, he also mentioned. He said the finance minister will sit with the company bosses soon and set a final deadline for the divesting. The officials of BFID are frequently corresponding with the SoEs to complete their preparation for offloading. But there is no significant progress yet. "They do not provide update on share offloading," he also said. A commissioner of the BSEC, seeking anonymity, told the FE that in fact the state entities themselves are not interested in offloading shares. Two of the 26 SoEs, namely the Power Grid Company of Bangladesh (PGCB) and Titas Gas Transmission and Distribution Company (TGTDC), offloaded 23.75 per cent and 25 per cent of their shares respectively on the capital market.  Offloading more shares of the two companies is being pursued, a joint secretary of the finance ministry said. Offloading shares of the rest 24 is still uncertain despite the finance minister's repeated requests since 2009. Even Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's direction on offloading such stakes did not work, it is also mentioned in the document, he added. Former finance adviser of the caretaker government Dr AB Mirza Azizul Islam said: "Firstly, size of the country's capital market is smal. Capital and debt size of the stock market will increase and scope of manipulation will reduce if shares of 26 SoEs are offloaded finally." He also noted that most SoEs could not make any appreciable progress in divesting on the stock market despite government's directive repeatedly -- "that's unbelievable".     rezamumu@gmail.com....

Published at: 2017-03-21 00:00:05

Microsoft Corp and Adobe Systems Inc are joining to make their respective sales and marketing software products more potent competitors to Salesforce.com Inc and Oracle Corp offerings, the two firms said Monday. On the eve of San Jose, California-based Adobe’s annual user conference, the company said that it will work with Microsoft to create a shared data format between Adobe’s marketing software suite, which the company is re-naming its Experience Cloud, and Microsoft’s sales software, called Dynamics, allowing the software systems to work together seamlessly. “It’s going to enable to customers to go beyond the current (software) silos they have to navigate today,” said Scott Guthrie, executive vice president of the cloud and enterprise division at Microsoft. For Adobe, best known among consumers for its Photoshop digital imaging and Acrobat PDF software, the partnership builds on a deal it struck with Microsoft last fall to use its Azure cloud computing services. Adobe has been pushing into business-to-business marketing software since it purchased Omniture Inc, a firm that helps website owners track their traffic, for $1.8 billion in 2009. Software that companies use to run digital marketing and advertising campaigns represented about $1.2 billion of Adobe’s $4.6 billion in revenue last year. For its part, Microsoft has been trying to expand Dynamics, its software system for sales people. Teaming with Adobe helps it compete more strongly against Salesforce and Oracle, which both offer a combination of sales and marketing software. Melissa Webster, an analyst with IDC, said that sharing data between systems to ensure customers get a smooth experience will be “an important battleground” in business-to-business software. If customers have spent a lot of money with a business, they expect the business to remember who they are and don’t like it when they have to constantly re-enter their name and information, she said. “Every time a company says with its body language ‘Who are you, again?’ it eats into their brand equity a little bit,” she said.....

Published at: 2017-03-21 00:00:05