Dhammika mulls Rs 2.8B deal

By Ravi Ladduwahetty

Ceylon FT: High net worth investor Dhammika Perera has offered to buy a 51% stake of Free Lanka Capital Holdings PLC for Rs. 2.8 billion, sources said. It is a transaction worth Rs 2,790 million for 697 million shares of the 1,368 million shares which constitutes the issued capital at Rs 4 per share, market sources told Ceylon FT yesterday. One of the reasons for the divestiture of the company...

is that the Free Lanka Capital Holdings was heading in different directions in the aftermath of the demise of the founder Kattar Aloysius and with the second and the third generations pulling the group in different directions and the staggering overnight drop in the post tax profits in a single year, they said.

Of the key shareholders of the company are Free Lanka Joint Venture Company (Pvt) Ltd which owns 54.68% of 767.6 million shares while Browns Investments PLC and Perpetual Holdings (Pvt) Ltd own 43 million shares each. One of the further salient points of the group's performance is that the turnover for the year ended 31 March, 2014 was increased to 4.6 billion from the Rs 4.2 billion a year ago, but the post tax profits between the years had nosedived from a billion rupees to Rs 25.6 million.

One of the key attractions of the Free Lanka Group is that it owns Maturata Plantations and partly owns Pussellawa Plantations and it is one of the largest wine importers in the country. They also said that the deal was going to be sealed by Ernst and Young, Chartered Accountants.

However, Dhammika and Free Lanka Capital Holdings PLC CEO Goddfrey Aloysius was not available for comment despite repeated attempts to contact them and all the call back messages. Dhammika's business partner Nimal Perera denied any knowledge of the proposed acquisition.
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Tess Group to boost local canned fish production

By P. Krishnaswamy

The Tess Group of Companies launched a fully Sri Lankan canned fish product 'Oliver's Pride' at a ceremony at the Cinnamon Lakeside on Thursday.

Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Development Minister Dr. Rajitha Senaratne was the chief guest.CEO and Director, Tess Group of Companies, Shiran Fernando said that the project became a success due to the encouragement and assistance provided by Minister Senaratne.

He said that the company will, in the course of time, meet the national need of 125,000 cans per day while at present they only produced one fourth of it. Although Sri Lanka is surrounded by ocean on all sides, the fish resources in the North and the East could not be harvested for many decades but the situation has now changed and they are getting fish from all coastal areas, he said.The brand has been named after his enterprising father, Oliver Fernando, who had been in business for over 35 years, he said.

The Minister lauded the indomitable spirit, courage and entrepreneurship of the CEO and Director, Shiran Fernando and other stakeholders of the company for the successful launch of the product amidst insurmountable obstruction and harassment by multinational companies in the industry.

From the early 70s, since the time of the then Prime Minister S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike, repeated efforts made by the Government, in collaboration with large companies, to launch a fish canning industry in Sri Lanka were unsuccessful because of obstruction by the multinational companies, the Minister said.

The efforts of the Tess group of companies, under its own initiative, to launch a joint venture with the Plaza, Japan, also became futile after the tsunami that hit Japan destroyed everything owned by Plaza, the Minister said.

Tess has now offered for the first time an innovative, quality product made of ‘virgin coconut oil and tuna’ at a low price, he said.

When he took over the Ministry of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Development, it was in debt to the tune of Rs.123 million but all that has been overcome and the Ministry is now on the right track promoting local aquatic products, he said.
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