Despite limited success as the head of the stock market regulator, M Khairul Hossain has been handed a two-year extension to take his tenure as the chairman of the Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission to nine years.

All previous chairmen -- Sultan-uz-Zaman Khan, MA Sayeed, Monir Uddin Ahmed, AB Mirza Azizul Islam and Faruq Ahmed Siddiqi -- had served a three-year term and they were not given any extension or were reappointed.

Hossain first became the BSEC chairman, a post which is equivalent to that of a senior secretary, on May 15 2011.

After the completion of the three-year term the government reappointed him for a further four years after the amendment of the Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission (Amendment) Act 2012.

The term was due to expire on May 18, but on Tuesday the government issued a notification confirming Hossain's extension.

Hossain's performance as the stock market regulator can at best be term a mixed bag, said a host of stock market analysts contacted by The Daily Star.

His success include formulating rules and regulations related to securities, development of a surveillance system and bringing structural changes to the capital market.

These enabled the BSEC to secure an 'A' category membership of the International Organisation of the Securities Commission, an association of organisations that regulate the world's securities and futures markets. His commission enforced two mutual funds to liquidate on time, which gained the confidence of investors in Bangladesh's mutual funds sector.

But, Hossain failed to take initiatives to develop Bangladesh's capital market.

He could hardly facilitate to bring good companies to the market. Many companies that got listed during his seven-year tenure were sub-par stocks: they showed inflated earnings and incurred losses soon after listing.

He failed to encourage multinational and big local big companies come to the market. And the BSEC's ruling that a sponsor director must hold a minimum of two percent stakes in the listed company was not followed by many.

Market players said the major failure during his predecessor’s tenure was the BSEC's mismanagement of margin loan, which forced many merchant banks not to sell shares after the 2010 debacle.

As per security rules, merchant banks are supposed to sell stocks to adjust the margin loan ratio. But the BSEC instructed them to not sell to prevent a panic from spreading in the market.

Many merchant banks are suffering for this decision on margin loans.

Prior to join the commission Hossain was the chairman of the state-owned Investment Corporation of Bangladesh from September 2009 to May 2011. Before that he was a professor of the department of finance at the University of Dhaka.