Over 29% of all companies listed on the Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE) may belong to the textile sector, but a majority of these stocks are illiquid. This is verified by the fact that only four out of the 100 companies that form the KSE-100 Index – the key benchmark of the Karachi bourse – are textile companies.
According to Arif Habib Investments Executive Vice Chairman Nasim Beg, the disproportionately high number of textile companies listed on the KSE is attributed in large part to the ‘licence raj’ of the years gone by.
“Back in the day when the country faced severe foreign exchange shortages restricting the import of heavy machinery, the government required textile and sugar mills to get listed. Since these companies enjoyed a near monopoly, the government wanted them to share their profits with the public at large,most of these textile companies allegedly started making off-the-book profits, which led to their stocks becoming illiquid.
However, the situation is changing for better of late. According to AKD Securities CEO Muhammad Farid Alam, many textile companies listed on the KSE – but not on the investors’ radar so far – now merit attention because of their high liquidity, dividend payouts and a strong results outlook.
A recent research report compiled by AKD Securities says that the price-earnings multiple of a select group of 11 textile companies listed on the KSE remained 4.3 in the first half of fiscal 2013. In contrast, the three-year average of their multiple had been only 2.2. Similarly, in terms of price performance, the year-on-year increase in the first half of fiscal 2013 has been a staggering 216%, the report says.