At an Extraordinary General Meeting held last Monday (9), shareholders approved Seylan Bank’s Rs. 4.69 billion rights issue proposed by the bank in order to enhance its capital base, expand its long term lending portfolio and strengthen operational capacity and expansion. "All the proposed resolutions at the EGM were unanimously approved by the large number of shareholders present," the bank said in a statement yesterday (10).
The Bank will offer 43,333,333 Ordinary Voting Shares to the registered holders of Ordinary Voting Shares in the ratio of one share for every three shares held in the Company at an issue price of Rs. 75 per ordinary voting share.
It will parallely offer 41,186,666 Non Voting Shares to the registered holders of Ordinary Non Voting Shares in the ratio of one share for every three shares held in the Company at an issue price of Rs. 35 per ordinary (non-voting) share.
Chairman Seylan Bank Eastman Narangoda said the objectives of the rights issue were primarily to increase the Tier 1 Capital of the bank to have a strong capital base, and for mobilisation of long term funds in a bid to fund the proposed increase in the long term lending portfolio of the bank, especially in the housing sector and also to facilitate the future expansion programme of the bank.
Seylan Bank’s long term lending is expected to cover large scale investment projects along with agricultural and small and medium scale projects.
"Under a proposed expansion programme, Seylan Bank will also increase its branch network island-wide while upgrading and refurbishing existing branches. The bank also looks forward to investing in advanced IT infrastructure to meet the demands of its expansion drive and to further add value to its customer service enhancement processes in order improve business efficiency as well and meet the envisaged future customer service requirements," the bank announced.
General Manager/CEO Seylan Bank’ Kapila Ariyaratne said the bank would invest in advanced technology, organisational restructuring and employee job enrichment and engagement processes by benchmarking international best practices from within and outside the country. "There would also be further investment on continuous staff training and development," he said.
Seylan Bank recently posted a Rs. 256.3 million profit in the first quarter of 2011, a 38 percent increase from the Rs. 185.9 million profits made in the corresponding period the previous year. The bank’s pre-tax profit was Rs. 395 million, up 36 percent from the Rs. 291.7 million a year earlier.
The bank recorded a net profit of Rs. 1.2 billion for the 2010 financial year, a 126 percent increase compared to Rs. 543 million for 2009. Pre-tax profits, at Rs. 1.9 billion, was up 124 percent from 2009, the highest ever profit figure earned by the bank since its inception.
source - www.island.lk
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