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Friday, April 22, 2011

Sri Lanka logistics group to raise $218mn in IPO

Apr 22, 2011 (LBO) - Sri Lanka's Expolanka Holdings, which has interests in logistics, trading and manufacturing said it will use the proceeds of a proposed 2.4 billion rupees initial public offer to settle debt, boost working capital and expand warehousing.

In the nine months to December 2010, 72 percent of the group's 25.8 billion rupee revenues came from transportation, 6 percent from export and import trade, 3 percent from strategic investments and 19 percent from others which included manufacturing.

Expolanka is selling 172 million shares at 14 rupees a share in a public offer which opens on May 12. After the IPO it will have 1.95 billion shares. Previously the group had placed some shares at 6.0 rupees.

The firm will use 908 million rupees to settle debt, some of which were taken as Islamic finance facilities, use 1,000 million for working capital through a group treasury to finance higher business volumes and use 500 million to expand warehousing capacity.

In the nine months to December 2010 the firm said profits grew 194 percent to 1,267 million rupees amid a recovery in international trade including in Sri Lanka.

About 822 million rupees came from other income which rose 166 percent from 311 million rupees a year earlier.

It included 313 million rupees from capital gains on sale of investments, 21 million in debt recoveries, 45.6 million in exchange gains and 76.3 million rupees in negative goodwill coming from consolidation of businesses.

The groups transportation segment which included international freight, airline general sales agencies and travel and tourism brought 1.33 billion rupees or 53 percent of pre-tax profits.

In addition to Sri Lanka it has operations in Bangladesh (revenues 2.69bn, pre-tax profits 145 mn), Vietnam (revenues 2.0bn and pre-tax profits 136mn, Dubai (revenues 2.4bn, pre-tax profits 2.4bn), India (revenues 979mn, pre-tax profits 338mn) and several African nations.

It trading operations include exporting fresh and processed fruits and vegetables, tea and saus it has the islands largest waste paper exporter for recycling with a market share of about 19 percent.

It has a 44 percent stake in APIIT, a higher education institute with Malaysian partnership offering British and other qualifications and HelloCorp, a business process outsourcing firm.

source - www.lbo.lk