Category: General Services

June 07, 2011 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Richard Pieris group wants to cash in on the post-war consumer spending boom by rapidly expanding its chain of ‘Arpico’ supermarkets, a senior official said. The firm’s profits nearly doubled to 2. 1 billion rupees in 2010 due to higher returns from core business areas, plantations, retail and […]

June 04, 2011 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s John Keells Holdings is expanding its property business with the acquisition of a six-acre site in a suburb on a key road to the international airport north of the capital Colombo. The conglomerate said it wants to expand its land bank by acquiring sites with a “high development […]

June 03, 2011 (LBO) – CT Land Development, owners of the Majestic City shopping mall in Sri Lanka’s capital Colombo is building three cinemas on its fifth floor which is now vacant, chairman R Selvaskandan has said. Income tax saw a reversal of 25 million rupees compared to a charge of 46 million rupees a […]

May 26, 2011 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Ceylon Cold Stores said net profit for the financial year ending March 2011 fell 13 percent to 200 million rupees from a year ago with its ‘Keells Super’ supermarket chain still in the red. Annual group sales rose 16 percent to 16. 6 billion rupees, the company said […]

May 25, 2011 (LBO) – Sri Lankan fashion retailer Odel said March 2011 quarter group net profit rose 29 percent to 33 million rupees from a year ago with sales growing as it expanded its network of stores. Sales for the quarter rose 22 percent to 817 million rupees from a year ago. Earnings per […]

May 19, 2011 (AFP) – Under a cloak of secrecy, the first film adaptation of controversial author Salman Rushdie’s celebrated novel “Midnight’s Children” has finished shooting in Sri Lanka. Canadian director Deepa Mehta chose the South Asian island as a location instead of India or Pakistan, where the book is set, to avoid problems with […]

May 16, 2011 (LBO) – Lanka Hospitals, formerly part of the Indian Apollo chain and now par-owned by India’s Fortis group, said March 2011 quarter net profit rose 81 percent to 65.2 million rupees from a year ago. The Lanka Hospitals Corporation said in a stock exchange filing sales for the quarter rose 31 percent […]

SINGAPORE, May 8, 2011 (AFP) – A 0-million private equity fund backed by the world’s top luxury retailer LVMH is on the prowl for emerging Asian brands in the hope of transforming them into global names. He said LVMH contributed less than 10 percent of the 0 million raised by the fund, with the bulk […]

May 04, 2011 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s state is “passionate and committed” towards Lanka Hospitals Corporation, a listed fee levying hospital which came under its control, a top official has said. “¦I must take this opportunity to reiterate that the Government of Sri Lanka remains passionate and committed towards its stake in The Lanka Hospital […]

Apr 26, 2011 (LBO) – A Sri Lanka stall at the London Book Fair this month had attracted large numbers of visitors while several British authors had made inquiries about publishing their books in the island, participants said. The Sri Lanka Publishers Association, The Booksellers and Importers Association of Ceylon and the Export Development Board […]

ANTANANARIVO, April 22, 2011 (AFP) – Twenty Madagascan women who planned to work as maids in Saudi Arabia, were intercepted by police in Madagascar Friday, before they were able to board the plane, the government said. “We prevented these young girls from leaving because their paperwork wasn’t in order, notably they didn’t have contracts signed […]

Apr 07, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s people are paying tens of billions of rupees to give state jobs to unemployable graduates from state universities where they have also studied at public cost, an official said. Sri Lanka has about 400,000 sitting for university qualifications exams and each year about 20,000 enter universities, and some […]