Access Engineering Limited (AEL), the holding company of Sumal Perera controlled Access group included a new chapter to the Sri Lankan corporate history by gifting Rs.3 billion worth of shares to its employees free of charge.
The 120 million shares (15 percent of out of entire 800 million shares) which were priced at Rs.25 each were earlier held by the three directors of the company i.e. Sumal Perera, Chairman/Managing Director, Christopher Joshua, Joint Managing Director and Ranjan Gomez, Director.
AEL is planning to come to the Colombo Stock Exchange in the latter part of this year or the early part of 2012. The company successfully concluded an Rs.4.5 billion private placement by offering Rs.180 million shares to corporates and high net worth investors recently, each at Rs.25.
"Even though this is called a gift of shares, in another sense this is not a gift. This is the way we say thank you to those who worked hard to bring AEL to the place it is today. And also this is an incentive for those who are already working hard for the company to commit to their work even harder" an emotional Sumal Perera told his employees.
He also said that this is the first time a company has gifted its shares to its employees at zero cost in Sri Lanka.
Perera further ensured that the distribution of shares will be done in an equal manner based nothing but on merits of a given employee.
The company is also expected to appoint three new directors to its board in preparation for the upcoming Initial Public Offering (IPO). The new directors would be Professor Malik Ranasinghe of Univesrsity of Colombo, well known corporate personnel Alex Lovell and Chartered Accountant Niroshan Guneratne.
The event was attended by the over 1000 employees of the AEL at a significant ceremony held at the Waters Edge on the 15th of June, 2011 (Wednesday).
source - www.island.lk
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