Sri Lanka rupee ends higher as banks sell dollar; stocks at near 4-mth low

Reuters: ** The Sri Lankan rupee closed higher on Thursday, a day ahead of the central bank’s policy rates review, boosted by dollar sales by banks in lacklustre trade, market sources said. 

** The stock market fell for the fourth straight session to a near four-month low as foreign investors exited from the island nation’s risky assets. 

** The rupee ended at 179.45/65, compared with Wednesday’s close of 179.50/70. 

** Sri Lanka’s central bank is expected to leave its key interest rates steady on Friday, a Reuters poll showed, as the island’s economy slowly recovers from a political crisis that sparked credit downgrades by all three major global rating agencies. 

** The local currency had posted a weekly loss of 0.42 percent in the last week due to high dollar demand from importers and outflows from the stock market. 

** It has risen 1.8 percent so far this year as exporters converted dollars and foreign investors purchased government securities amid stabilising investor confidence in Sri Lanka after the country repaid a $1 billion sovereign bond in mid-January. 

** The bond market saw inflows of 3.3 billion rupees in the week ended Feb. 13, recording its fourth straight weekly inflow, the latest central bank data showed. 

** Worries over heavy debt repayment after a 51-day political crisis that resulted in a series of credit rating downgrades dented investor sentiment as the country is struggling to repay its foreign loans. 

** Sri Lanka has raised its borrowing limit for dollar-denominated bonds to $3 billion and chosen seven lead managers to tap the international market as soon as possible, three government sources said on Tuesday. 

** The rupee dropped 16 percent in 2018, and was one of the worst-performing currencies in Asia due to heavy foreign outflows. 

** The Colombo Stock Exchange index fell 0.7 percent to 5,839.04 on Thursday falling for the fourth straight session, its lowest close since Oct. 26. 

** The benchmark index had fallen 0.92 percent last week, after losing 0.3 percent in the previous week. It declined about 1 percent in January. 

** The turnover was 1 billion rupees, more than last year’s daily average of 834 million rupees. 

** Foreign investors were net sellers of 43.1 million rupees worth of shares on Thursday, extending the year to date net foreign outflow to 5.2 billion rupees worth of stocks, and 18.5 billion rupees since the political crisis began on Oct. 26, 2018. 

(Reporting by Ranga Sirilal and Shihar Aneez; Editing by Rashmi Aich)

Shareholders nod Sri Lanka's NDB to sell Rs6.5bn bail-in bonds

ECONONOMYNEXT - Shareholders of Sri Lanka's National Development Bank has give the go-ahead of the lender to raise up to 6.5 billion rupees of bail-in bonds.

The firm will sell 5-year listed, rated, unsecured, subordinated redeemable debentures, which may be converted to equity if needed (Basel III-compliant).

The lender will sell 5 billion rupees of bonds with an option to increase by another 1.5 billion rupees.

Sri Lanka's Lee Hedges to build Rs1.1bn car park

ECONOMYNEXT - Sri Lanka's Lee Hedges Plc said its board has decided to build a 1.1 billion rupee car park in a property on a Colombo 03, Galle Road property.

The car park is the first phase of a larger commercial development.

It will take 12 months to complete and will have 186 parking slots in 6 floors, the firm said in a stock exchange filing.

Sri Lanka approves 13 new hotel investments in Dec quarter

ECONOMYNEXT - Sri Lanka has approved for 54.7 million US dollars in hotel investments during the fourth quarter ending in December 2018, the state tourism office said.

Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA) data showed the investments were across 13 new hotel projects, of which 12 were small, with less than 49 rooms each.

One project in Trincomalee will have 50 rooms.

In total, 264 rooms will be added to the national supply once the newly approved hotels finish construction, for an average of 20 rooms per hotel.

Four of the approvals granted are for hotels in the Galle district, and two are in the Gampaha district.

Another nine new hotels, worth investments of 14.8 million US dollars started their commercial operations during the quarter.

These hotels added 247 rooms to the national supply.

The SLTDA said the total registered room supply in Sri Lanka is now 38,214, up from 36,693 in the September quarter. These include hotels, guest houses, bungalows, homestays, and rentals.

Sri Lanka's Softlogic makes loss in Dec quarter, expands supermarkets chain

ECONOMYNEXT - Sri Lanka’s diversified Softlogic Holdings group made a big loss in the December 2018 quarter but reported plans to continue expanding its new chain of supermarkets as it was optimistic about future consumer demand.

The group made a loss of 347 million rupees in the December 2018 quarter compared with net profits of 77 million rupees the previous year, interim results filed with the stock exchange showed.

The quarterly loss per share was 29 cents. The share last traded at 18.80 rupees.

December 2018 quarter sales rose seven percent to 19.7 billion rupees.

In the nine months to December 2018, group EPS was 50 cents with net profits down slightly to 75 million rupees.

Softlogic group chairman Ashok Pathirage told shareholders their new ‘Softlogic Glomark’ supermarket outlet in the suburb of Delkanda attracted positive customer response with the outlet performance exceeding expectations.

“We will be opening in Kottawa, Mount Lavinia, Colombo 7, Negombo, and Malabe,” he said. “An essential outlet concept of around 2,000-3,000 square feet is being developed to be set up at Asiri Central, Asiri Kandy, Orion City and in Kurunegala.”

Sri Lanka’s 01-year Treasury yield edges up to 10.73-pct

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Bids for six billion rupees of 03-month bills offered were rejected while the yield on the 06-month bill remained at 9.87 percent, the same as two weeks ago, data from the Public Debt Department showed.

It accepted 20.4 billion rupees of 01-year bills, having offered 10.5 billion rupees worth of bills and getting offers of 44.5 billion rupees.

Sri Lanka's Piramal Glass sees strong export growth if fuel is formula-priced

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Furnace oil now costs 92 Sri Lanka rupees a litre, and it is not linked to crude oil prices.

Chief Executive Sanjay Tiwari says the comparable cost in India is 72 rupees.

"Furnace oil prices linked to crude oil will make exports more competitive," Tiwari said.

"We are not asking for subsidies."

Piramal Glass now exported about 150 containers a month with about 45 containers going to India. It also exports to the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Myanmar.

"We are working on to increase our exports percentage to total capacity up to 40 percent," he said. "This may take two years."

The company is now building a fifth production line with an investment of 1.3 billion rupees.

The new line will increase capacity to 300 tonnes per day from the current 260 tonnes.

In the nine months to December, Piramal increased exports revenues 31 percent to 2.123 million rupees amid as domestic sales fell 3 percent to 3,362 million rupees.