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PMF Finance PLC: research report

Moderately overvaluedbearishAug 8, 2026

PMF Finance’s latest quarter shows operating profit growing while net profit fell, exposing a widening gap below operations. The shares are near their 52-week low, leaving valuation and funding risks unresolved.

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Why bearish

  • Quarterly revenue grew 21.1%, but net profit fell 35.8%, showing that growth is not reaching shareholders.
  • Interest cover was only 0.23x, leaving limited protection against financing pressure.
  • The share price fell 19.9% over three months while the ASPI fell 7.1%, indicating pronounced relative weakness.

Against this. Operating margin rose 1.5 percentage points to 30.0%, showing that the latest weakness was below operations rather than in the core operating result.

Operating margin
27.1%sector 40.4%
latest quarter
Net margin
10.0%sector 17.8%
latest quarter
Return on equity
10.8%sector 13.0%
full year to Mar 31, 2026
P/E
9.9sector 6.9
earnings Rs 0.91 per share
P/B
1.05sector 0.94
book Rs 8.61 per share
Dividend yield
0.00%sector 2.16%
trailing twelve months

Current figures, updated daily from filings to Jun 30, 2026. The report below was written on Aug 8, 2026. Sector figures are the median of 54 listed companies in the same sector.

Overview

PMF Finance is a diversified Sri Lankan finance company spanning leasing, trade finance, secured lending, deposits, investment banking and property-related activities. The most important current change is the split between improving operating performance and weaker profit after operating costs, which makes financing and other below-the-line charges central to the investment case.

Price performance

PMB closed at LKR 10.50 on 2026-08-07. It fell 13.2% over one month and 19.9% over three months, versus ASPI declines of 2.1% and 7.1% over the same windows. Over one year, PMB fell 19.9% while the ASPI gained 9.5%.

The share sits at 2.3% of its 52-week range, just 1.9% above the low and 44.4% below the high. Recent annualised volatility was 46.3%, 14.6% below its own one-year level, while 20-day volume was 49.4% below its 60-day average. Price and operations disagree: the share fell 19.9% over three months even as operating margin improved.

Valuation

PMB trades at 12.12 times earnings and 1.23 times book value, above the finance-sector medians of 7.41 times and 1.00 times. Its P/E sits at the 73rd sector percentile and its P/B at the 59th, so the stock is not positioned as a low-multiple finance counter.

Full-year ROE was 10.6%, which provides some support for a premium to sector book value, but does not remove the earnings-quality concern. The displayed dividend yield is 0%, and no dividend history is supplied, so the direction of the payout cannot be established.

News and sentiment

Company coverage was about normal, with 2 articles in the last 30 days against a baseline of 1.7 per month. The latest 90-day material flow comprised 4 articles: 2 negative and 2 neutral, with no positive items.

The July 15 CSE listing-rule enforcement action is the most adverse item. On July 11, PMF withdrew its proposed LKR 1 billion debenture issue after an internal assessment, without giving further details. No confirmed or undated corporate actions are recorded.

Financials

The latest filed quarter, ended 2026-03-31, is historical because the next filing covers 2026-06-30. On a like-for-like group basis, revenue grew 21.1% to LKR 821 million and operating profit grew 27.3% to LKR 246 million year-on-year. Operating margin widened from 28.5% to 30.0%, ranking 3rd of 7 comparable March quarters in the company’s history.

Net profit moved in the opposite direction, falling 35.8% to LKR 87 million. Net margin narrowed from 20.0% to 10.6%, ranking 5th of 7 comparable March quarters. The below-line drag increased from LKR 58 million to LKR 159 million, explaining why operating growth did not translate into bottom-line growth.

March is structurally PMF’s strongest quarter for net margin across 5 complete years, while June is its weakest. The latest March result is therefore being judged against the company’s strongest seasonal quarter, yet its net margin was only middling against comparable March history. Equity rose to LKR 3.39 billion from LKR 3.05 billion; the latest quarterly share count was not disclosed.

Risks

The largest risk is financing strain. Latest reported group debt was LKR 19.43 billion against owners’ equity of LKR 3.39 billion, while the available annual balance-sheet comparison is not like-for-like because 2025 is on a company basis and 2024 on a group basis. Interest cover was 0.23x in the latest annual company-basis data, leaving little operating protection for finance charges.

Current ratio and cash conversion are not meaningful measures for this lender because deposit and lending flows dominate the cash statement. The sector regulator’s warning over inflated vehicle valuations and loan-to-value breaches raises underwriting and compliance risk for finance companies, while tighter oversight of crypto-linked fintech adds a regulatory consideration to the wider sector.

Outlook

As at 2026-08-08, the next filing is the quarter ended 2026-06-30, with the exchange-based expected window running from 2026-07-28 to 2026-10-26. That filing is the next event that can show whether the March gap between operating profit and net profit persisted or narrowed; the supplied data cannot determine this yet.

The broader finance backdrop is mixed: falling T-bill and bond yields may ease local funding conditions, while regulatory scrutiny of vehicle valuations and loan-to-value practices remains a constraint for the sector. No confirmed dividend, rights issue or other corporate action is scheduled.

About this report. Generated on Aug 8, 2026 from market data up to Aug 7, 2026, 4 material news articles over 90 days and financials to Mar 31, 2026. Every figure is drawn from EquityLK's own data on this company. AI research can contain errors, so treat it as a starting point, not investment advice.

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