ACAP to acquire 70 per cent stake in Navara Capital Partners

By Hiran H.Senewiratne 

Asia Capital PLC (ACAP) recently announced to the CSE that the company had entered into a share purchase agreement to acquire a 70 percent  stake of Navara Capital Partners Ltd. (NCPL).Upon acquisition of NCPL, the latter would re-enter and recommence its stock brokering business at a time when capital markets in the country are performing well due to policy certainty prevailing in the current economic landscape of the country, company sources said. 

The agreement was entered into on Monday. “Navara Capital Partners is currently carrying out business as an investment holding company and the company is having a 95 percent  stake of Navara Securities. The company is also planning to recommence its  stock brokering business shortly, which is part of our expansion plan, sources said.

At the CSE yesterday, developments were as follows: Tokyo Cement voting share price dropped to Rs. 75.20 from Rs. 77.80, which was a Rs. 2.60 or three percent drop and non voting shares witnessed a  drop of Rs 67.10 from Rs. 69.20, which was a Rs. 2.10 or three percent drop.

 Melstacorp, Royal Ceramic and Swissteck share prices declined slightly due to slight profit takings of certain shareholders. 

 Both indices dropped during the day. All Share Price Index went down by 2.6 points and  S and P SL20 went down by 0.09 points. The turnover stood at Rs. 2.72 billion with five crossings. Those crossings were reported in Vallibel One, which crossed 1.6 million; its shares traded at Rs. 25.70, Sampath Bank 250,000 shares crossed for Rs. 32.75 million, its shares traded at Rs. 131, Commercial Bank 400,000 shares crossed for Rs. 31.6 million; its shares traded at Rs79, JKH 167,500 shares crossed for Rs. 24.7 million; shares traded at Rs. 147.50 and Royal Ceramic 133,600 crossed for Rs. 23 million, its shares traded at Rs. 172.

In the retail market top five companies that mainly contributed to the turnover were, JKH Rs. 272 million (1.86 million shares traded), Hayleys Fabrics Rs. 231 million (8.5 million shares traded), Tokyo Cement (Non Voting) Rs. 218 million (3.2 million shares traded), Tokyo (Voting) Rs. 164 million (2.2 million shares traded) and CT Holdings Rs. 159 million (979,000 shares traded). During the day  94 million share volumes changed hands in 19892 transactions.   

On the previous day long standing Director Kamantha Amarasekera  bought a 5 percent  stake in Browns Investments PLC (BIL) for Rs. 3 billion.

The transaction amounting to 750 million shares was done at Rs. 4 each. The share price of BIL increased by Rs. 0.10 (2.56percent ) to close at Rs. 4. The deal accounted for 51 percent  of the turnover at the CSE yesterday while overall BIL saw 877 million of its shares traded for Rs. 3.5 billion, accounting for 60 percent  of total turnover.