Browns Investments enters into $ 1 billion MOU with CHEC

By Hiran H.Senewiratne 

Browns Investments PLC announced that it has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with China Harbour Engineering Company to put up a major mixed development project in Port City, which runs into US$ one billion, stock market analysts said.

Under this joint venture project Browns Investments will be building  two residential apartments and one office complex. The total area that would be covered by the  project would be around 160,000 square meters. Initial investment would be US$ 450 million and the project will take some time for completion, analysts added.. 

Browns Investments contributed more than 48 percent to the turnover with its retail trading activities, stock market analysts said.  

 Further,  Sunshine Holdings PLC said it was acquiring Akbar Pharmaceuticals (Pvt) Ltd for a 25 percent stake in its own pharma unit, Sunshine Healthcare (Pvt) Ltd.

Amid those developments both CSE indices showed a downward trend. All Share Price Index went down by 31.53 points and S and P SL20 declined by 19.74 points  Turnover stood at Rs. 4.44 billion with five crossings. Those crossings were reported in Hatton Plantations, which crossed 29 million shares to the tune of Rs. 291 million, its shares traded at Rs. 10, Tokyo Cement 500,000 shares crossed for Rs. 29.6 million; its shares traded at Rs. 59.10, Hemas Holdings 296,000 shares crossed for Rs. 28.7 million, its share value was 97, Dialog two million shares crossed for Rs. 24.6 million, its shares being traded at Rs. 12.30 and Distilleries one million shares crossed for Rs. 21 million, its share price standing at Rs. 21. The market was negative because  139 companies’ share prices declined.

In the retail market, top five companies that contributed to the turnover were;  Browns Investments Rs. 2.15 billion (514 million shares traded), Tokyo Cement Rs. 205 million (2.9 million shares traded), Brown and Company Rs. 74.8 million ( 1.6 million shares traded), Tokyo Cement (Non Voting) Rs. 151.2 million (2.49 million shares traded) and Expolanka Rs. 118.7 million (4.7 million shares traded).During the day 610 million share volumes changed hands in 26629 transactions. 

The Sri Lankan rupee was quoted at 186.9 against the US dollar as of 11:02 GMT, 0.11% lower for the day compared to last session’s close of 186.7. The currency is down 3.09% so far this year. Equity market turnover was Rs. 3.44 billion, data showed.