Category: Industry
Fleet Fortunes
May 29, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lanka could make use of the global slump in shipping to rebuild its national merchant fleet as ships without work are now going cheap, the island’s navy chief Wasantha Karannagoda has said. The end of the 25-year-old ethnic war gives the country an opportunity to revive its merchant navy, […]
Repair Returns
May 28, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lankan ship builder Colombo Dockyard said net profit for the March 2009 quarter shot up 112 percent to 519 million rupees from 245 million rupees a year ago.A platform support vessel for the same Indian customer – the first of an order of four – is now under construction. […]
Mortgage Rating
May 28, 2009 (LBO) – Fitch Ratings Lanka has confirmed an ‘AA-(lka)’ rating assigned to a mortgage backed security issued by Sri Lanka’s HDFC Bank. Fitch said the outlook of the rating on the 82.6 million rupee HDFC Home Loan Securitisation Trust 2005 – Sri Lanka’s (HLST) was ‘stable’. The security was given a Loss […]
Fee Hit
May 28, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Citibank unit’s March 2009 quarter profits were down 41.7 percent to 230.6 million rupees on sharply lower fee income, though the net interest margins were up, published accounts showed. Interest income was up 14.5 percent to 756.8 million rupees, while interest expense was down 12.1 percent to 208.0 […]
Lease Focus
May 28, 2009 (LBO) – Ceylinco Finance, a listed firm in the Ceylinco group, says it is re-structuring itself under the guidance of a veteran banker to focus on leasing, and is planning to ask for a finance company license. N B S B Balalle, a former chief executive of state-run National Savings Bank, has […]
Sri Lanka Janashakthi Insurance suspension lifted
May 27, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s insurance regulator said it had lifted a suspension on the registration of Janashakthi Insurance from today, after the firm showed “sufficient cause”. Janashakthi said it last week it was making fresh proposals to meet the regulator’s concerns. “The Insurance Board of Sri Lanka has accepted the Company’s explanations […]
Trim Talk
May 27, 2009 (LBO) – Subscribers of Sri Lanka’s Hutch, a unit of Hutchison had dropped 44 percent to 772,000 in the year to March 2009 amid steep price cuts and an entry of a fifth operator to the market. Dialog, a unit of Telekom Malaysia and the island’s dominant mobile phone operator, said its […]
Spell Check
May 27, 2009 (LBO) – The Sri Lankan chapter of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) has launched the second season of Spellmaster, a spelling contest which it hopes will improve English spelling and vocabulary skills among school children. Being an avid reader from a very young age, I always referred the dictionary to […]
Asset Backed
May 27, 2009 (LBO) – Fitch Ratings Lanka said it has confirmed People’s Leasing Co.Ltd. Trust 32’s (PLC32) 119.7 million rupee lease-backed trust certificates (LBTCs) at ‘A-(lka)’ with a stable outlook.A Loss Severity rating of ‘LS-3’ has been assigned, it said in a statement. “The affirmation is based on the uninterrupted payouts made to LBTC […]
Rescue Mission
May 27, 2009 (LBO) – The Finance Company can be turned around within six months, according to Merchant Bank of Sri Lanka (MBSL) which has been appointed by the banking regulator to manage the troubled finance firm. “The only way to move forward The Finance is engage in day-to-day activities.If not, we can’t meet the […]
Sri Lanka Ceylinco Insurance March profit down 29-pct
May 26, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Ceylinco Insurance Company said March 2009 net profit fell 29 percent to 101 million rupees from a year ago as claims went up, despite a sharp increase in investment income. The firm is part of the Ceylinco group which was thrown into a crisis when an unlisted subsidiary, […]
Mobile Growth
May 26, 2009 (LBO) – Mobitel, a unit of Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT), has increased subscribers by 73 percent to 2.8 million in the year to March 2009, while revenues climbed 48 percent to 3.6 billion rupees in the first quarter, the group said. In the year to March 2009, Millicom International Cellular said its […]