GTB denies role in stock price manipulation

Hyderabad, May 16: THE city-based Global Trust Bank (GTB) on Wednesday denied role in any kind of manipulation in the bank’s share price or any kind of nexus with anybody in the stocks manipulation.

‘‘GTB shares had been under rolling settlement since March 2000, which means that any sale or purchase has to be only against delivery and hence cannot be speculated,’’ a bank release said here.

While the bank has lend funds to various brokers including Ketan Parekh, it had always ensured that those funds were not utilised for payment towards purchase of shares of Global Trust Bank, the release added.
The bank had issued shares at Rs 85 in March 2000 and during the entire period of 12 months, ie ending March 2001, the maximum price the share went up to was Rs 113 (on NSE on Nov 20, 2000), the release said.

The promoters of the bank were not interested in share price movement nor indulged in share price manipulation nor derived any benefit owing to the share price movement either by sale of shares, it said.
The GTB promoters have neither sold nor purchased any shares during the period of 12 months, from April 1, 2000 to March 31, 2001 while their group including their associates had sold 90,000 shares in the entire period of 12 months.

More importantly, during the period of negotiations of merger with the UTI Bank, the share price actually moved down from a level of above Rs 90 to a level of Rs 80.25 on the day prior to announcement of merger, which indicated there was no attempt or desire to manipulate the share price, the release added. (PTI)