Associated Motor Finance and Arpico Finance merger on the cards

By Hiran H.Senewiratne 

Two leading CSE listed companies, Associated Motor Finance Company Plc  and Arpico Finance will go for a merger soon. The merger deal is expected to be completed by 31st March 2021. The Central Bank of Sri Lanka has given the approval to go ahead with the programme, stock market analysts said.

With the merger the surviving company would be Associated Motor Finance company. At present 444897 shares of Arpico Finance with the public, which accounts 5.98 percent of the total issued shares by the company. Once the merger is completed  Arpico Finance company shareholders will receive 76 shares of   Associated Motor Finance Company for every 100 shares of Arpico Finance, stock market sources said. 

Amid those developments the market was positive. All Share Price Increased up by 56.62 points and S and P SL20 up by 25.66 points. JKH, one of the index heavy companies in the CSE was the largest contributor for the All Share Price Index. Its share price increased by Rs 1.40 or 0.76 percent. JKH share price increased to Rs 148.40 from Rs 146.10.

Further, most of Hayleys group companies share price also increased considerably. Those companies were Hayleys Plc, Dipped Products, Hayleys Fabrics are some of them. Hayleys Plc share price increased by Rs 20.90 of 5,9 percent. Its share price started trading at Rs 386 and at the end of the day it shot up to Rs 407.30, Dipped Products witnessed 50 cents or 1.8 percent increase. Its share price increased upto Rs 27.90 from Rs 27.40.

The turnover stood at Rs 2.7 billion with two crossings. Those crossings were reported in Hayleys Plc, which crossed 1.6 million shares to the tune of Rs 657 million and its share price traded at Rs 395 and Ceylon Cold Stores 40000 shares crossed for Rs 27.4 million and its share price traded at Rs 685,

In the retail market companies that mainly contributed to the turnover were Hayleys Plc Rs 250 million (625,000 shares traded), Dip Products Rs 155 million (467,000 shares traded), Central Finance Rs 103 million (871,000 shares traded), Hayleys Fabrics Rs 96 million (3.4 million shares traded), Tokyo Cement (Non Voting) Rs 94.1 million (1.4 million shares traded) and Tokyo Cement (Voting) Rs 91.4 million (1.2 million shares traded). During the day  67.8 million share volume changed hands in 19919 transactions.

Sri Lanka’s rupee weakened to new lows with the US dollar quoted around 190.50 to 191.00 levels in the spot market and offered around 193 levels, dealers said, amid record money printing and low interest rates.