Bondholder negativity trammels debt restructuring exercise

By Hiran H.Senewiratne

Although so far all creditors have evinced a positive response to the debt restructuring exercise this is not the case with all bondholders. The latter have not responded positively to the external debt restructuring exercise, which is one of the IMF requirements to go ahead with its programme, stock analysts said.

The total external debt component is around US $ 34.65 billion. In Sri Lankan rupee term it’s around Rs 11.4 trillion.

Amid those developments both indices moved downwards. The All- Share Price Index went down by 66.81 points and S and P SL20 declined by 22.15 points.

Turnover stood at Rs 445 million with one crossing. The crossing was reported in Agarapathana Plantation, which crossed 3.3 million shares to the tune of Rs 25 .3 million and its shares traded at Rs 7.50.

In the retail market top seven companies that mainly contributed to the turnover were; Commercial Bank Rs 46.1 million (291,000 shares traded), Sampath Bank Rs 44.7 million (630,000 shares traded) Expolanka Holdings Rs 40.9 million (298,000 shares traded), Lanka IOC Rs 30.2 million (288,000 shares traded), JKH Rs 29.6 million (155,000 shares traded) PGP Glass Rs 16.7 million (605,000 shares traded) and Access Engineering Rs 16.2 million (857,000 shares traded). During the day 22 million share volumes changed hands in 6400 transactions.

It said that banking sector counters were performing well in the market. There was a demand for JKH, Expolanka Holdings and Lanka IOC stocks as well.

Yesterday, the rupee opened at Rs 326.85/327.00 from Rs 326.90/327.10 the previous day (last Friday).