LOLC and Expolanka drive bourse along bullish path

By Hiran H.Senewiratne

CSE trading activities initially yesterday were extremely bullish and were driven by two leading entities/counters, LOLC Group and Expolanka. The reason for the LOLC Group to perform well in the stock market was because LOLC (Ceylon) Ltd. that was established in 2018, announced a debenture issue for September 29 to raise Rs. 1 billion, stock market analysts said.

LOLC (Ceylon) Ltd. is planning to purchase all three finance companies under the LOLC Group to make them function as one entity in the future. Initially they will transfer 55 percent of LOLC Development Finance (NIFL) from LOLC Group. Part of the money raised from the debenture issue and the balance two companies, namely LOLC Finance Plc and Commercial Leasing Plc, will join the company in the future, market analysts added.

Meanwhile, E M L Consultants Limited commenced trading on the Empower Board of the CSE yesterday. The company listed 90,900,000 Ordinary Voting Shares and has been classified under the Industry Group “2020 – Commercial & Professional Services”. With the commencement of the very first day of trading its share price appreciated by 690 percent. Its shares started trading at Rs 2 and at the end of the day they shot up to Rs. 15.80.

Amid those developments both indices moved upwards. The All Share Price Index went up by 364 points and S and P SL20 rose by 79.6 points. Turnover stood at Rs 6.7 billion with four crossings. Those crossings were reported in JKH, which crossed 5.7 million shares to the tune of Rs 771 million and its shares were traded at Rs 136, Sampath Bank 3.6 million shares crossed for Rs 182 million, its shares traded at Rs 49.50, LMF 250,000 shares crossed for Rs 45 million with its shares fetching Rs. 180 and Nestle 16000 shares crossed for Rs 20.1 million, its shares fetching Rs. 1250.

In the retail market, five companies that mainly contributed to the turnover were; Expolanka Rs. 2.5 billion (13.5 million shares traded), Browns Investments Rs 653 million (67.6 million shares traded), LOLC Finance Rs 411 million (43.7 million shares traded), LOLC Holdings

Rs 402.9 million (730,000 shares traded) and Commercial Leasing Rs 204.4 million (7.5 million shares traded). During the day 202.7 million share volumes changed hands in 38000 transactions.

Asiri Hospitals have topped the league in the first-ever ranking of listed entities in Sri Lanka in an exercise for the year ended 31 March 2021, done by K Seeds Investments. All six listed hospital companies were assessed on Net Profit Margin, EBIT Margin, Return on Equity, Return on Assets Debt to Equity Ratio, Current Ratio, Revenue Growth and Net Profit Growth.

On that basis, Asiri Surgical Hospital has come on top, followed by Asiri Hospital Holdings, Ceylon Hospitals (Durdans), Nawaloka Hospitals, Lanka Hospitals, and Singhe Hospitals.

The current USD to LKR exchange rate is Rs. 200.04 per US dollar.