IFAD Autos, an assembler of commercial vehicles, have flagged offproduction of truck cabins at its plant at the IFAD Industrial Park in Dhamrai.
The cabin or cab of a truck is the inside space in a truck where the driver is seated.
The plant, which began rolling on December 31, 2020, was financed with the rights shares it issued in 2017, the company said in a posting on the website of the Dhaka Stock Exchange on Sunday.
If the plant, which is set up on 1,050 decimals of land bought for Tk 11.9 crore by Naif Engineering & Builders, is run on a single shift, the monthly production would be 300 units and the annual production 3,600 units. If the factory is run in full capacity, the annual production would be 10,000 units.
Shares of IFAD Autos, which has been listed since 2015, closed 7.6 per cent higher at Tk 50.8 on Sunday.
The company, which is the sole distributor of Indian commercial vehicle giant Ashok Leyland, is going full steam ahead with its expansion plans even though its profit took a beating for the pandemic.
Last week, it announced buying additional 33 decimals of land at Tejgaon Industrial Area in Dhaka for Tk 19.84 crore for business expansion.
Then in 2019, the company acquired 49 per cent holding of Gulf Oil (BD), a subsidiary company of Gulf Oil International (UK) that sells lubricants, grease and car care products, for about Tk 11.9 crore to give a backward linkage.
Its profit tumbled 79.9 per cent to Tk 22.8 crore in its 2019-20 financial year that ended on June 30. But from July, it began picking up as the economy gradually reopened after a two-and-a-half-month-long shutdown to slow the spread of coronavirus.
Between July and September, IFAD Autos's profit leapt 37.6 per cent year-on-year to Tk 172.4 crore.
The company’s share price has been on descent since January 9, 2019: before then, IFAD Autos shares were trading at upwards of Tk 100.
The solid first-quarter showing helped claw back some of the lost ground: since the result was unveiled on October 28, its shares gained about 30.6 per cent.
The company has recommended a total of 11 per cent dividend -- 9 per cent cash and 2 per cent stock -- for the year ended on June 30. In the previous year, it gave 10 per cent cash dividend.