Category: Industry
Regional Links
Oct 07, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s wireless access provider Lanka Bell said it has reduced call rates to India. The company pays them 50 cents for every minute of incoming IDD calls regardless of the duration, country of origin or the number of calls received for a day. Lanka Bell is the largest CDMA […]
Regaining Confidence
Oct 07, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lanka needs to introduce restrictions on single-shareholder stakes and multiple ownership of registered finance companies (RFCs) by a single individual or group, RAM Ratings Lanka has said.“However, well-rated and/or prudently managed RFCs had been able to withstand the pressures better than others.Moreover, the timely intervention of the Central Bank […]
BPO Buy
Oct 06, 2009 (LBO) – Control of IsmartTimex, a Sri Lanka based outsourcing firm has been acquired by India’s Aegis Limited, a unit of the Essar group, but a minority 20 percent stake will be held by local partners, the company said. Aegis says it has operations in India, Philippines, the US, Costa Rica, Kenya, […]
Container Trade
Oct 06, 2009 (LBO) – A Colombo port container terminal in which Sri Lanka’s John Keells Holdings group has a majority stake said volumes rose to a record high in August 2009, the fourth straight monthly rise. Colombo is south Asia’s hub port, where cargo is shipped on feeder vessels to and from smaller ports […]
Circular Debt
Oct 05, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lankan government organisations owed the state-owned refiner, Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC), 61 billion rupees in unpaid bills for fuel supplies by September 2009, CPC chairman Asoka Thoradeniya said. In the past losses from energy subsidies (both fuel and power), which increase debt in state banks and are then funded […]
Key Players
Oct 05, 2009 (LBO) – Lanka Orix Leasing Company (LOLC) and Brown and Company Limited, two related parties may own 20 percent of Seylan Bank after a capital raising is concluded, a media report said.The Sunday Island newspaper quoting an unnamed source said LOLC and Browns had each applied for 10 percent of the expanded […]
Share Stakes
Oct 03, 2009 (LBO) – State-run Merchant Bank of Sri Lanka (MBSL) chairman Janaka Ratnayake owns a large stake in a Ceylinco group company in which the state bank has also invested an equal stake, a listed company filing has disclosed.The Finance Company (TFC), a troubled Ceylinco group firm which is also under MBSL management, […]
Rural Outsourcing
Oct 02, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s rural economy can take a slice of India’s 12 billion dollar Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry by catering to the bottom of the pyramid customers who look at costs over optimum service, a foreign investor said. “India does about 12 billion dollars of knowledge base process work; 10 […]
Merchant Reach
Oct 02, 2009 (LBO) – Merchant Bank of Sri Lanka (MBSL) said it had raised its stake in Ceylinco Investment Company, part of the troubled Ceylinco group, to 46 percent, through a five million rupee cash injection.MBSL said in a statement it bought 500,000 shares of Ceylinco Investment Company at 10 rupees a share. MBSL […]
Fresh Capital
Oct 02, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Seylan Bank said its public share issue of 54.29 million shares at 35 rupees a share to raise 1.9 billion rupees has been oversubscribed. “The total capital expected to be generated from both the private placement and public offering will be 3.025 billion rupees,” the bank said in […]
Terminal Trends
Oct 02, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA) is in talks with international shipping lines on new services through Colombo port despite the global downturn in trade which has reduced cargo volumes, a senior official said.SLPA chairman Priyath Wickrama said there were signs cargo volumes were picking up as the global economy recovers […]
Trading Platform
LONDON, October 1, 2009 (AFP) – Britain’s London Stock Exchange announced Thursday that it is in exclusive talks to buy pan-European electronic trading platform Turquoise.“London Stock Exchange Group plc announces that it has entered into exclusive discussions with Turquoise Trading Limited, which may lead to a transaction,” the LSE said in a brief statement. “A […]