Overview
Capital Alliance is a Sri Lankan investment banking and brokerage firm licensed as a Primary Dealer, with activities spanning broking, investment banking, treasury and fixed income markets. It also uses digital distribution through the CALT Portal.
The most important change is the latest quarter's abrupt move into a substantial loss, reversing the profitable performance seen in the comparable company-basis quarter.
Price performance
CALT fell 5.3% over one year to LKR 50.30 as at 14 August 2026, while the ASPI gained 9.3% over the same period. The relative weakness was also visible over six months, with CALT down 5.8% against a 9.2% ASPI decline.
The share sits near the bottom of its 52-week range, 22.5% below its high and only 2.9% above its low. Recent annualised volatility was 13.8%, 65.8% below its own one-year volatility, while 20-day volume was 9.5% above its 60-day average. The quieter price pattern has not changed the weak one-year performance.
Valuation
CALT trades at 8.21 times earnings and 1.99 times book value, versus sector medians of 7.4 and 0.95 respectively. Its P/E is near the sector middle at the 56th percentile, but its P/B is at the 85th percentile, indicating that the stock is valued more richly on book value despite the recent loss.
The audited year ended March 2026 produced an ROE of 18.0%, which helps explain why P/B is above the sector median. The 31.8% dividend yield is at the 100th percentile among 34 sector peers, but the payout direction is uneven: DPS was LKR 3.04 in FY2023, LKR 25.50 in FY2024, and LKR 16.00 in FY2026. No dividend is recorded for FY2025, so the yield is not supported by a consistently rising payout.
News and sentiment
Coverage was unusually quiet: no articles were recorded in the last 30 days against a baseline of 1.0 article per month, while the 90-day window contained one material article classified as neutral.
The main funding-related disclosure was a May 2026 related-party commercial-paper borrowing of LKR 3.6 billion at 10.0%, maturing on 12 June 2026, to support liquidity. The March 2026 upgrade to A+ with Stable Outlook was constructive, while the confirmed FY2026 dividends of LKR 4.00 and LKR 12.00 went ex in September and December 2025.
Financials
The June 2026 quarter was a sharp deterioration: revenue fell 223.7% into negative territory, while operating and net profit both fell into a LKR 2.81 billion loss from a LKR 1.41 billion profit in June 2025. Both periods are on the company basis, so this is a like-for-like comparison.
The latest operating and net margins were each 104.9%, compared with 90.4% and 64.7% respectively a year earlier. These positive ratios are arithmetic effects of negative income and negative profit, not evidence of profitability. Gross margin was not reported for either period. The latest operating and net margin readings were each the best of four comparable June quarters, but that historical rank does not offset the absolute loss.
For the audited year ended March 2026, revenue fell 52.0% and net profit fell 54.7%, while ROE was 18.0%. The annual filing shows 723 million shares against 329 million in the quarterly filings, so per-share comparisons are not treated as a trend without a confirmed corporate action.
Risks
The most important risk is funding pressure. Total debt was LKR 60.44 billion against owners' equity of LKR 8.31 billion at June 2026, while interest cover was only 0.44 times for the year ended March 2026. The prior annual filing reported gearing of 610.0% of owners' equity, underscoring the balance-sheet sensitivity.
As a lender and capital-markets firm, current ratio and cash conversion are not meaningful measures of its financing model. The latest quarterly operating loss also makes the large dividend payout difficult to assess as a sustainable distribution rather than a balance-sheet decision.
Outlook
The next identifiable event is the filing for the quarter ending 30 September 2026. As at 15 August 2026, it was still in progress and the filing window was expected to run from 7 November 2026 to 7 January 2027; that filing will supersede the June figures used here.
Falling Treasury yields, ample liquidity and a policy rate around 8.75% provide a more supportive sector backdrop for fixed-income activity, but the available data cannot establish whether those conditions have improved CALT's earnings. The next filing therefore matters mainly for whether the June loss was reversed and whether liquidity support remains necessary.