Category: Banking and Finance

Apr 22, 2014 (LBO) – Melsta Regal Finance Ltd, a young finance company promoted by Sri Lanka’s Distilleries group said it has expanded into Central, North Central and Southern regions of the country.The firm offers working capital finance with Letter of Credit opening facilities, warehousing, logistics and debt factoring as well as equipment and vehicle […]

Apr 21, 2014 (LBO) – Sri Lanka needs private equity to play a bigger role in financing business which will help them grow faster with less leverage and become world beating firms, the Central Bank said. Financial sector professionals have attributed it to lack of skills of those who were taken to manage them, some […]

Apr 21, 2014 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Commercial Bank of Ceylon said customers withdrew a record 2.05 billion rupees from teller machines on Friday April 11, a new daily high in the run up to a traditional New Year holiday. The number transactions processed was 245,000 lower than a previous record of 325,000 which the […]

Apr 12, 2014 (LBO) – International Finance Corporation, a World Bank arm said it will invest 10 million US dollars in Emerald Sri Lanka Fund I, a 50 million US dollar private equity fund focused on the island.The fund will be run NDB Zephyr Partners, a joint venture between by New York based Zephyr Management […]

Apr 11, 2014 (LBO) – York Street Partners (Pvt) Ltd, a Sri Lanka based boutique investment advisory firm had won a competition held by Harvard Business School, leading the region.In this journey, York Street Partners has succeeded in attracting and unifying Sri Lankan talent with international capital market experience working in organizations such as Goldman […]

Apr 11, 2014 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’ National Development Bank Plc said it sold out of Maldives Finance Leasing Company for 1.1 million US dollars. NDB itself is curently in talks to merge with DFCC Bank, another Sri Lanka based lender. A 35 percent stake in the firm had been sold to Tree Top Investments […]

Apr 09, 2014 (LBO) – Sri Lankan firms have got the nod to borrow 335 million US dollars abroad 2013 by the Central Bank, while debt markets also supplanted bank loans in 2013, as commercial bank credit to private firms slowed, an official said. Analysts say it is important to allow for a period of […]

Apr 04, 2014 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Bank of Ceylon said it financed the building of 368 kilometres of roads as part of credit given to the state its main shareholder, 30.9 billion rupees for water projects and 5.2 billion rupees for hotels. The bank said its net interest margin narrowed to 3.3 percent to […]

Apr 01, 2013 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s central bank said it had approved in principle mergers among a few banks and non-bank lenders, in a regulator driven bid to build a financial sector made up of fewer, larger firms.Several non-bank lenders have seen bad loans rise over the past few years amid tighter economic conditions […]

Apr 01, 2014 (LBO) – Standard Chartered Bank said it had structured a 150 million US dollar equivalent Islamic finance facility for state-run Sri Lankan Airlines which was partly secured by a government guarantee and receivables.In 2012 SriLankan raised a 175 million US dollar equivalent facility from Gulf banks. “The proceeds of the facility will […]

Apr 01, 2014 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s two largest state banks have taken a 20 billion rupee hit on credit losses in 2013 and had slashed their troubled gold-backed loan portfolios as the precious metal’s price slumped, interim accounts show.State-run People’s Bank set aside 11.7 billion rupees as general provisions in 2013 up from 3.2 […]

Apr 01, 2014 (LBO) – Krishan Balendra, has been appointed chairman of Sri Lanka’s Nations Trust Bank.NTB said in a stock exchange filing that Arjuna Gunaratne, who had been on the board of the bank from 2005 is stepping down to comply with a regulatory direction limiting a director’s tenure to nine years.Balendra will take-over […]