BSEC Revives Bangladesh's Tk1,700 Crore Investor Fund After a 26-Month Board Vacuum

For 26 months, Tk1,700 crore meant for Bangladesh's small investors sat under a fund with nobody formally in charge of it. The Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission has now ended that gap, naming a seven member interim board to run the Capital Market Stabilisation Fund while it pushes a new law through parliament that would finally settle who controls the money and how it can be spent.

• The Capital Market Stabilisation Fund, set up in 2021 from undistributed dividends and other unclaimed investor assets, held no governing board from 2024 until this week, a gap of about 26 months.
• BSEC Chairman Masud Khan now leads a seven member interim Board of Governors that includes the Dhaka Stock Exchange's managing director and the heads of two professional bodies.
• The fund holds roughly Tk1,700 crore, about Tk900 crore in cash and Tk800 crore in listed stocks.
• A proposed Capital Market Stabilisation Fund Act, 2026 would replace the current rules based framework after a joint committee initially recommended winding the fund up entirely, a plan BSEC rejected.

Why the Fund Sat Empty for Two Years

The CMSF was created in 2021 to collect money that would otherwise go unclaimed: undistributed dividends, rights shares nobody picked up, and unallotted subscription money from IPOs. Under the fund's original rules, up to 40 percent of its cash could be used to buy and sell listed securities, at least half had to go toward refinancing loans for market intermediaries doing margin lending, and the rest could sit in fixed deposits and government securities.

That structure worked until the fund's board term expired in 2024. No replacement board followed. Behind the delay sat a dispute over legal authority, specifically concerns Bangladesh Bank raised about whether the fund had proper legal standing to keep receiving unclaimed investor dividends in the first place. With the question unresolved, the fund kept existing on paper while its governance sat frozen.

Who's on the New Board

BSEC's interim Board of Governors brings together regulators, market institutions and professional bodies. Alongside BSEC Chairman Masud Khan and Commissioner Hossain Sadat sit Sabbir Ahmed, president of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Bangladesh, Riad Mahmud, president of the Bangladesh Association of Publicly Listed Companies, and Nuzhat Anwar, managing director of the Dhaka Stock Exchange. An additional secretary from the Financial Institutions Division joins once the ministry confirms a nominee, and the CMSF's own chief executive officer serves as member secretary.

According to people close to the process, a joint committee of Finance Ministry and BSEC officials first recommended winding up the fund entirely and moving its assets to the government treasury. BSEC pushed back, maintaining that the money should be used exclusively for investors.

That disagreement is what pushed the regulator toward drafting an entirely new statute rather than simply reappointing a board under the old rules.

What the New Law Would Do

The proposed Capital Market Stabilisation Fund Act, 2026 would turn the CMSF into a formal custodian of unclaimed market assets: undistributed dividends and rights shares, unallotted IPO and QIO subscription money, undistributed assets of delisted companies, investment returns, and government or institutional grants. The fund would settle eligible investor claims for dividends, rights shares, bonus shares, subscription money and delisted company assets, with claims remaining valid indefinitely so that heirs can eventually claim on behalf of an investor who has passed away, subject to verification. The draft also envisions the CMSF running a centralised framework for dividend distribution and tax deducted at source management, plus funding investor education and training.

Fund detail	Figure
Total fund size	Approximately Tk1,700 crore
Cash holdings	Approximately Tk900 crore
Stock holdings	Approximately Tk800 crore
Board vacancy	26 months, 2024 to October 2026
New board size	7 members, interim

What It Means for You

If you have ever held shares in a Bangladeshi listed company and moved house, changed your bank account, or simply lost track of a dividend payment, this is the fund meant to eventually make you whole. A functioning board, and eventually a dedicated law with claims that never expire, should make it easier to recover unclaimed dividends or rights shares years after the fact, rather than watching that money sit indefinitely in limbo.

For active investors in Dhaka's stock market, the bigger signal is about regulatory follow through. The CMSF was also supposed to support margin lending refinancing for brokerages, a function that matters for market liquidity during stressful periods. A properly governed fund, rather than one stuck in a legal grey zone, is one more small piece of the broader effort to rebuild confidence in Bangladesh's capital market after a rough stretch of foreign investor outflows and repeated BSEC and Bangladesh Bank disputes. If you are weighing new investments in the market, it is worth tracking how quickly the new Act actually clears parliament, since that will determine whether this interim board is a quick fix or a lasting one.