Overview
Ceylon Tea Brokers is a licensed intermediary in Sri Lanka’s Colombo Tea Auction, earning broking and marketing fees while also providing producer financing and manufacturing advice. Its fully owned Logicare subsidiary adds logistics, warehousing and supply-chain services.
The latest quarter extended the company’s return to a more stable profit profile after the audited year ended March 2025 moved into a loss. The core business remains asset-light in its broking role, but the group’s financing and logistics activities make balance-sheet discipline important.
Price performance
CTBL rose 7.6% over one week and 3.7% over one month, outperforming the ASPI’s 1.2% and 1.0% gains over the same periods. Over three months it fell 3.4%, less than the ASPI’s 5.6% decline, while its six-month return of -15.7% lagged the index’s -9.2% decline.
The shares closed at LKR 11.40 on 14 August 2026. They are 22.6% below the 52-week high and sit at 55.4% of their 52-week range. Recent 60-day annualised volatility was 42.1%, running 27.5% below the company’s own one-year volatility, while 20-day volume was 5.9% above its 60-day average.
Valuation
CTBL trades at 14.3x earnings against a sector median of 9.02x, placing its P/E at the 71st sector percentile. The larger valuation stretch is on book value: its 3.35x P/B is 2.8 times the sector median of 1.19x and ranks at the 96th percentile.
The latest audited annual ROE was negative at -3.3%, so the premium P/B is not supported by current owner returns. The 5.3% dividend yield is above the sector’s 3.8% median and ranks at the 71st percentile, but the payout has fluctuated: DPS was LKR 0.68 in FY2023, fell to LKR 0.44 in FY2024, then recovered to LKR 0.60 in FY2025.
News and sentiment
Direct coverage is thin: no material company articles were recorded in the 90-day news window. The latest listed disclosures were a 10 April 2026 update on the transfer of shares in Logicare and a 24 February 2026 CSE listing-rule penalty.
The most recent confirmed dividend was LKR 0.60 per share, with an ex-date of 4 November 2025 and payment on 24 November 2025. No undated corporate action is currently recorded.
Financials
For the quarter ended 30 June 2026, revenue was LKR 391.4 million, up 4.4% year-on-year, while net profit reached LKR 35.9 million, up 7.9%. Gross margin narrowed from 71.5% to 68.5%, but net margin improved from 8.9% to 9.2%; the latest net margin ranked 2nd of 7 comparable June quarters, while gross margin was middling at 4th of 7.
Operating profit and the below-line drag were not reported for the latest quarter, so the data cannot establish whether the profit increase came from operations or from finance costs, tax and other items. Group equity was LKR 620.4 million, broadly unchanged from LKR 620.5 million a year earlier. The latest quarterly filing does not report shares outstanding; the annual FY2025 filing reported 182.4 million shares.
The audited year ended 31 March 2025 recorded a 16.9% year-on-year revenue decline and negative ROE of -3.3%, after the prior year was profitable. Across six complete years tested, December is structurally the weakest quarter for net margin, but June 2026 was not that seasonal extreme.
Risks
The principal risk is financial leverage. At 31 March 2025, total debt was LKR 2.03 billion, equal to 369.6% of owners’ equity, and operating profit covered finance costs only 1.06 times. This leaves limited protection if broking volumes, producer activity or logistics demand weaken.
Liquidity is also tight, with a 1.10x current ratio. Cash conversion was stronger at 1.25x and free cash flow was LKR 312.8 million in the audited period, but these figures do not remove the refinancing sensitivity created by the debt load. The company does not disclose the minority share of profit, so group net profit cannot automatically be treated as the amount belonging entirely to CTBL shareholders.
Sector conditions add operating uncertainty: tea’s national sales average was LKR 1,176.10 per kilogram, while labour shortages remain a constraint for plantation agriculture. These are sector indicators, not company-specific results.
Outlook
The next company-specific event is the quarter ending 30 September 2026. As at 15 August 2026, the filing is expected from 7 November 2026 to 7 January 2027; it will supersede the June figures used here and show whether the recent profit improvement is being maintained.
Falling Sri Lankan interest rates and ample liquidity, reported as at 15 August 2026, provide a more favourable funding backdrop for a highly geared group, but the company’s own finance-cost trend is not available for the latest quarter. The data therefore supports improved recent earnings, while leaving the durability of operating performance and the cost of debt unresolved.