Banking sector shares suffer decline in the wake of Combank’s morn setback

By Hiran H.Senewiratne

Commercial Bank of Sri Lanka stocks were trading down last morning, a day after the bank announced a rights issue. Non- voting shares were down at Rs. 84.00. This negatively impacted other banking stocks yesterday, market analysts said.

The bank made a capital call from shareholders of Rs 22 billion, offering voting shares at Rs 85 and non-voting at Rs. 69. Commercial Bank will offer 252,082,449 shares in the proportion of 1 for every existing 5, to raise Rs 21.42 billion.

Amid those developments selling pressure noted in all sectors, especially banking sector stocks. Both indices moved downwards. All Share Price Index went down by 125.76 points while S and P SL20 declined by 69.18 points. Turnover stood at Rs 1.05 billion with three crossings. Those crossings were reported in Lanka Milk Food, which crossed 1.12 million shares to the tune of Rs 34.2 million and its shares traded at Rs 29, NTB 175,000 shares crossed for Rs 21.35 million; its shares traded at Rs 122 and Sampath Bank 2.3 million shares crossed for Rs 179 million; its shares sold at Rs 77.

In the retail market top seven companies that mainly contributed to the turnover were; Commercial Bank Rs 221 million (2.1 million shares traded), JKH Rs 39.5 million (192,000 shares traded), Sampath Bank Rs 28.4 million (368,000 shares traded), Commercial Bank Rs 24.9 million 9,299,000 shares traded), Royal Ceramic Rs 24.6 million (695,000 shares traded), LOLC Holdings Rs 23.1 million (50000 shares traded), Browns Investments Rs 22.3 million (3.5 million shares traded). During the day 55.6 million share volumes changed hands in 10800 transactions.

The rupee strengthened to open at 301.00/20 to the US dollar on Wednesday, from 301.70/302.30 the previous day, dealers said. Bond yields were broadly steady. A bond maturing on 15.12.2026 was quoted up at 9.90/10.00 percent from 9.90/10.05 percent. A bond maturing on 15.09.2027 was quoted at 10.35/45 percent from 10.30/55 percent. A bond maturing on 01.07.2028 was quoted stable at 10.90/11.00 percent.