LOLC seeking opportunities in local and international leisure sectors

By Hiran H.Senewiratne

CSE activities were positive yesterday and manufacturing sector shares appreciated for the third consecutive day caused by rumours that a Chinese loan is being granted to the country to revive the local manufacturing sector, stock market analysts said.

Apart from that, LOLC is now in the process of entering the local and international leisure sectors in a significant manner. A fully owned subsidiary of Browns Investments, BI Leisure Holdings, has been incorporated in the United Arab Emirates and it has entered into a share sales and purchase agreement to acquire PL Resort Limited, which is a private company established in Mauritius. The company’s value is US $ 12 million and the purchase consideration would be US $ 3.7 million, company sources said.

According to PL Resort Limited, the company owns a 100 room capacity luxury beach resort in Mauritius. Meanwhile, another one of LOLC’s fully owned subsidiaries, Palm Garden Hotel PLC, is in discussions with the owners of some local and foreign leisure companies to acquire them. However, no finality has been reached thus far, stock market analysts said.

With these developments the CSE acquired more positive momentum. Accordingly, both indices moved upwards. All Share Price Index was up by 45.95 points and S and P SL20 up by 16.07 points. Turnover stood at Rs. 1.93 billion with two crossings. These crossings were reported in JKH, which crossed 563,000 shares to the tune of Rs. 76.1 million, its shares traded at Rs. 135.25 and Tokyo Cement (Non Voting) 485,000 shares crossed for Rs. 27.9 million, its shares traded at Rs. 57.50.

In the retail market, top five companies that mainly contributed to the turnover were, Expolanka Rs. 308 million (5.82 million shares traded), LOLC Rs. 160 million (388,000 shares traded), Dipped Products Rs. 87.7 million (1,81 million shares traded), Hayleys Fabrics Rs. 95 million (4.32 million shares traded) and People’s Leasing Rs. 62.1 million (4.7 million shares traded). During the day122.8 million share volumes changed hands in 20826 transactions.

The Sri Lankan rupee was last quoted at Rs. 198.5 against the U.S. dollar. The equity market’s turnover was Rs. 2.26 billion ($11.37 million), according to exchange data.