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Friday, February 18, 2011

Murder at ASHO!

A rather unfortunate or as brokers termed it a "murderous" act took place at the Colombo Stock Exchange last Tuesday as 12 percent of Lanka Ashok Leyland PLC (ASHO) was allegedly subjected to forced selling at extremely low prices.

Making things worse for the shareholder whose shares were subjected to forced selling due to margin pressures, the ASHO share went up by more than 100 percent of the sold price to Rs.2500 immediately after the sale.

It is learnt that a longstanding shareholder and a director of ASHO owned these shares and the bank that had provided funds for him with regard to theses shares had instructed the brokers to sell them.

According to brokers this paved the way for the new kid in the block Perpetual Capital headed by Arjun Aloysius to buy most of the ASHO shares at Rs.1000, about Rs.2000 below its previous closing price.

On Tuesday Perpetual had collected 465,500 shares amounting to 12.38% stake of ASHO, dispensing around Rs.450 million.

However the entire broking community was aghast by the low price the relevant brokers had negotiated for their client as the ASHO stock had been trading at Rs.3000 levels.

A stock market analyst commenting on the matter said, as far as he is aware the brokers should obtain a special permission from the Colombo Stock Exchange if they were to sell a certain share at more than 50 percent above or below the previous trading price.

Adding to the confusion, the CSE imposed the 10% price band on Lanka Ashok Leyland from 18 February 2011 to 11 March 2011. The price band was imposed despite the share closing at Rs.2383, down Rs.650.

ASHO records huge profits

Lanka Ashok Leyland Plc recorded a vehicle sales revenue of Rs 3.5 billion for the quarter ended 2010 compared to just Rs 707 million for the same period lat year.

Net profit after tax for the quarter was at Rs 322 million whereas only Rs 35 million was made for the same period last year.

For the nine months the company recorded revenue of Rs 7.8 billion in which Rs 707 million was net profit after tax. This is also in the back drop of making only a net profit after tax of Rs 1.5 million for the same period.

The earnings per share has sky rocketed to Rs 195.49 compared to only Rs 0.42 for the same period last year.

source - www.dailymirror.lk