KARACHI: The appointment of Richard Morin, a Canadian national, as chief executive officer of the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX), has raised alarms in some quarters of the bourse.

Already, eyebrows were raised with the sale of strategic shares of the PSX to a Chinese consortium.

“The stock market has been sold out to foreigners,” muttered a wide-eyed distraught investor.

It is difficult for the stockbrokers to contemplate swallowing the bitter pill of obeying orders of the first-ever foreign CEO of the bourse. Some are also eyeing the new CEO’s, who would be taking charge of the PSX on Jan 8, 2018 remuneration with a mixture of envy and jealousy.

According to sources Mr Morin would be paid Rs4.5 million in salary and Rs2m in perks making a tally of Rs6.5m a month. It would amount to more than twice the remuneration paid to his predecessor. But such a figure of remuneration is not unheard of in the financial sector. It is at par or even thinner than the pay packet of most fat cats heading big local and some foreign banks.

Shaukat Tarin, the former Finance Minister of the country and a one-time chairman of the bourse, told Dawn that he finds no fault in either the negotiated pay or placing a competent foreigner at the helm of a Pakistani institution.

He disclosed that during his time, he had advised the then prime minister to let an experienced and capable foreign national head PIA to take it off the ground. “If the British could place a Canadian national as the Governor of Bank of England, what harm is there in a foreign competent professional taking over, if he could breathe new life with new products in the Pakistani bourse?” he asks.

To recall, a Canadian banker, Mark Carney, heads the UK’s central bank – being the first foreigner to run the 319-year old institution.

Regarding the remuneration, Mr Tarin observed that the foreigners who agree to work in Pakistan and some other countries which are professionally called “Hardship locations” demand certain premium in pay.

Mr Muneer Kamal, the chairman of the board of directors of PSX assured that although under the terms of SPA, the Chinese anchor investors comprising China Financial Futures Exchange Company Limited, Shanghai Stock Exchange and Shenzhen Stock Exchange that paid the highest price of $85m in the bid for 30 per cent strategic stock in the PSX – was empowered to nominate personnel to three key management positions including the CEO, the Chinese directors on the board had requested the management to short-list candidates.

“After a detailed and transparent process, including advertisements in local and foreign newspapers, appointment of advisors and interviews of candidates, the Human Resources sub-committee of the Exchange had picked out the three persons for the top job, including Richard Morin,” he said. The other two candidates, whom Mr Muneer did not want to name, sources say were also the highly qualified Mr Raza Rahim and Mr Farrukh Sabzwari.

The PSX chairman also laughed off the unsubstantiated claims of foreigners’ takeover of the Exchange. He explained that the Chinese consortium has just 30pc stake in the PSX capital while the locals representing the two institutions among strategic buyers – Habib Bank Limited and Pak-China Investment Company Limited – secured 5pc stock each in the strategic shares sell-off. In the remaining 60pc shares, 40pc were vested in the broker fraternity while 20pc was issued to the public through an Initial Public Offering (IPO). “As such the nominees of chief regulator and the representatives of local market participants are still in considerable majority on the board,” he affirmed.

Published in Dawn, December 10th, 2017