Friday 22 May 2015

Sri Lanka’s Guardian Capital Partners profit up sharply on sale of Expo, Access stakes

EconomyNext – Gains from the sale of stakes in two investments helped Sri Lanka’s Guardian Capital Partners increase net profit to 184 million rupees in the financial year ended March 31, 2015 from 15.5 million the year before.

Earnings per share for the year were 7.13 rupees compared with 60 cents previously, its annual report filed with the stock exchange showed.

A statement by the company, the private equity investment arm of the Ceylon Guardian Investment Trust Group, said the improvement was mainly driven by profits realized on the divestments of holdings in two investments it had.

Annual revenue rose 591 percent to almost 200 million rupees which was driven by gains made on the sell down of stakes in Expolanka Holdings and Access Engineering which yielded gains of 171 million rupees.

The report said a total gain of 130 million rupees was realized on the sale of 28 million shares of Expolanka and the balance gain of 41.3 million rupees as realized on Access Engineering.

“The sell down was executed in order to reduce the exposure to the company as the risk profile of the company changed significantly during the last quarter of the year,” Guardian Capital Partners told shareholders in its annual report.

The company’s portfolio is managed by Guardian Fund Management Limited.

The company statement said it believes the private equity market to be gaining traction, albeit at a very slow pace.

“With the end of the war have seen some of the largest and most respected global private equity players and investors committing funds into Sri Lanka.

“Guardian Capital Partners PLC is on the lookout for good quality businesses backed by strong entrepreneurial and management teams who seek capital to fund their growth plans,” it said.

No comments:

Post a Comment