Strong debut by SFS shares

By Athraja de Silva

Swarnamahal Financial Services Ltd. (SFS) listed 25million ordinary shares on the Diri Savi Board of the Colombo Stock Exchange commenced trading yesterday as per a listing directive issued by the Central Bank.

Ten percent of the family shares which amount to 2.4 million had been lodged in the CDS, and began trading at Rs. 100 per share which soon averaged to Rs. 57. The total number of shares in issue is 25 million.

The highest price the share traded yesterday was at Rs.100 and the lowest Rs.41. A total of 682, 600 shares traded and the share closed at Rs.43.

SFS, an E A P Edirisinghe Company and one of the fastest growing Finance companies in Sri Lanka, also revealed that they are preparing to launch a Gold Exchange Trading Fund (ETF) in order to provide opportunities for the public to invest in Gold. This is following the plan to implement a Commodities Exchange in Sri Lanka.

‘The legal framework is still being assembled and we expect it will be implemented by the end of this year,’ said Nalaka Edirisinghe, Director, SFS. ‘Gold is a highly demanded metal and is something the public knows about. Thus, the opportunity to invest and gain benefit from it will be an exciting opportunity for the public.’

The Company posted a pre-tax net profit of Rs. 120.6 million for the FY ending March, 31, 2011 as opposed to the Rs. 23.3 million recorded in the previous year. Net profit after tax was Rs. 76million as opposed to the Rs. 16.8million the year before. The net interest income also grew by 121% to Rs. 318 million with income interest generated from pawn-broking alone amounting to 77% of the company’s total interest income.  The full focus of SFS will be on pawning services ,which grew from Rs. 864million to Rs. 2433 million in the last financial year. “At present we cover only 5% of the Pawning market segment. We still have 95% of the market to attract,” SFS Director noted.

source - www.dailymirror.lk