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PMF Finance PLC: research report

Moderately overvaluedbearishSep 11, 2026

Debt reached LKR 19.2 billion, equal to 562.7% of owners' equity. Annual profit still rose 14.2%, but funding and disclosure issues dominate the case.

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Why bearish

  • Debt was LKR 19.2 billion at March 2026, equal to 562.7% of owners' equity.
  • The June quarter produced LKR 83 million of net profit from LKR 225 million of operating profit, leaving a LKR 142 million below-the-line drag.
  • PMF withdrew a proposed LKR 1 billion debenture issue on 11 July 2026, while a CSE enforcement action was disclosed on 15 July 2026.

Against this. Audited annual net profit increased 14.2% in the year to March 2026.

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 Sep 11, 2026. Sector figures are the median of 54 listed companies in the same sector.

Overview

PMF Finance provides leasing, trade finance, secured lending, advisory and investment-related services. Its most material change is a sharp increase in balance-sheet leverage during a period when the audited business remained profitable, making funding discipline more important than headline earnings growth.

Price performance

The share fell 16.7% over both three and six months, against ASPI declines of 0.4% and 6.3% respectively. At LKR 10.00 on 11 September 2026, it was down 47.1% over one year while the ASPI rose 1.8%.

The price sits 1.1% up from its 52-week low and 46.5% below its high. Sixty-day volatility was 7.7% below its own one-year level, while 20-day volume was 19.6% below the 60-day norm.

The record includes five pullbacks of 15% or more since September 2023; the latest reached 47.6% over 12 months and has not recovered. Liquidity is very limited: median daily turnover was LKR 155,243, so a LKR 1 million order equals 644.2% of a typical session.

Valuation

PMF trades at 11.31 times earnings and 1.16 times book value, above sector medians of 7.19 times and 0.91 times. Its P/E ranks at the 68th percentile of 48 finance peers and P/B at the 58th percentile of 53 peers, neither an extreme but both above the sector midpoint.

The market-wide assessment is Moderately overvalued, scoring 34 of 100 on price against book value, earnings and dividends across 270 CSE companies. There is no dividend yield or recorded dividend history, so the valuation case rests on earnings and book value rather than income. The data does not provide a comparable own-history valuation record or earnings-reliance analysis.

News and sentiment

Company coverage was unusually heavy, with 3 articles in 30 days against a monthly baseline of 1.5. Over 90 days, 2 of 6 material articles were negative, 1 positive and 3 neutral.

The substantive disclosures include withdrawal of the proposed LKR 1 billion unsecured debenture issue on 11 July 2026 without further explanation, a CSE enforcement action on 15 July, and a credit-rating review on 17 August. Trading was halted pending financial statements on 29 May before the statements were published that day.

Financials

Audited revenue rose 36.9% to LKR 3.14 billion in the year to March 2026, while net profit increased 14.2% to LKR 368 million. Operating profit rose to LKR 926 million from LKR 460 million, but the slower net-profit growth shows that costs outside core operations absorbed much of the operating gain. Return on equity was 10.8%, and equity increased to LKR 3.41 billion from LKR 3.04 billion. The share count was effectively unchanged at about 405 million.

The June 2026 filing is on a company basis, whereas June 2025 was filed on a group basis, so they are not like-for-like and no year-on-year conclusion can be drawn. The latest operating margin was 27.1% and net margin 10.0%, versus 26.0% and 10.7% on the prior-year group basis; gross profit and gross margin were not reported. June is structurally PMF's weakest quarter for net margin across five complete years, which changes how the 10.0% quarterly margin should be read. The latest quarter's LKR 142 million gap between operating and net profit remains material.

Risks

Funding leverage is the foremost risk. Total debt rose to LKR 19.2 billion at March 2026, equal to 562.7% of owners' equity, from 126.6% a year earlier. Interest cover was not disclosed for the latest annual period, limiting visibility on the ability of operating profit to absorb finance charges.

The withdrawal of a proposed LKR 1 billion debenture issue leaves uncertainty around funding options, while the July CSE enforcement action raises governance and compliance risk. Sector conditions also remain demanding: as at 11 September 2026, fuel-led inflation was 8.0% and Treasury yields were shifting, which keeps lender funding and loan-pricing conditions under pressure.

Outlook

As at 11 September 2026, the next defined catalyst is the September 2026 quarterly filing, expected between 12 November 2026 and 2 March 2027. It should clarify whether PMF can sustain profitability while managing its enlarged debt base and whether the funding position changed after the debenture withdrawal.

The data cannot establish the reason for the debenture withdrawal, the outcome of the enforcement action, or the terms of the September corporate disclosure. Those disclosures, rather than the historical share-price decline, are the next company-specific information likely to change the assessment.

About this report. Generated on Sep 11, 2026 from market data up to Sep 11, 2026, 6 material news articles over 90 days and financials to Jun 30, 2026, and scored 34 of 100 on value (moderately overvalued) when it was written. 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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