On the Line is a weekly roundup of sourcing and labor quick hits in the apparel and footwear industry, from worker protests to boardroom maneuvering, tracking the developments shaping conditions on the factory floor and beyond.

Beleaguered Bangladeshi conglomerate Beximco Group is seeking government approval for a new leasing model to partially reopen its shuttered apparel and textile factories with investment from British firm Charter HCP and Chinese company Besting, according to officials.

Once one of Bangladesh’s largest private sector employers, Beximco built a business empire spanning textiles, pharmaceuticals, ceramics, real estate, media and energy that collapsed following the fall of the Awami League government and the arrest of co-founder Salman F. Rahman, a key adviser to former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. More than a dozen garment units at Beximco Industrial Park in Gazipur shuttered as a result, leaving some 40,000 workers unemployed.

But Khalid Shahrior, senior general manager of Beximco’s Textiles & Apparel Division, and Huda Mohammed Faisal, CEO of Revival Global, the asset manager for the investors, told The Daily Star this week that they hope to partially restart Prefix Fashions under the proposed leasing arrangement. If greenlit, the factory could reopen in April next year, with jackets for export accounting for about 90 percent of production and other products making up the remainder.

Under the proposed arrangement, Charter HCP and Besting would sign a five-year deal with Beximco, with loan repayments flowing directly from the factory’s export proceeds through banks holding liens on its assets to prevent Beximco from interfering with the process, Shahrior and Faisal said.

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