Overview
Sunshine Holdings is a Sri Lankan conglomerate across healthcare, consumer and agribusiness with distribution, retail and local pharma manufacturing partnerships. The latest quarter showed strong top-line momentum but weaker profitability, and the stock now trades at premium sector multiples while paying dividends above current earnings.
Price performance
Momentum has been soft relative to the ASPI. The share fell 16.2% over six months versus -11.3% for the index, and is down 8.8% over three months versus -6.5%. Over one year it rose 3.8% against the ASPI’s 9.3%. The price sits between a 52-week low of LKR 26.9 and high of LKR 39.2.
Valuation
SUN trades on 19.28x P/E and 2.95x P/B, with a 6.0% dividend yield. Within diversified holdings, these sit at the 94th percentile for P/E and the 100th for P/B, while the yield is at the 94th percentile. A 15.3% ROE makes a higher P/B consistent with its returns, but the percentile extremes indicate a full-to-rich sector stance.
News and sentiment
Coverage over 90 days was balanced-to-positive: 13 material articles with 6 positive, 6 neutral and 1 negative. The last 30 days were unusually quiet versus SUN’s own baseline. Notably, Sunshine Healthcare and Zydus Lifesciences announced a US$20 million JV to build a BOI Horana pharma plant, signalling intent to deepen local manufacturing. A final dividend of LKR 0.60 went ex on 26 June 2026; a 1-for-4 share split took effect on 19 February 2025.
Financials
FY26 revenue rose 11.2% to LKR 65.93 billion, while net profit fell 14.8% to LKR 5.04 billion. In the March 2026 quarter revenue grew 21.1% YoY to LKR 17.07 billion, but profitability tightened: gross margin was 24.9% versus 27.8% a year ago, operating margin 10.6% versus 13.4%, and net margin 4.5% versus 8.7%. Net profit fell 37.9% YoY even as operating profit slipped a milder 4.3%, pointing to a below-the-line drag of LKR 1.04 billion. Against its own history, the quarter’s net margin was among its worst of the last 12, though middling for a March quarter. Equity stood at LKR 27.38 billion at March, with c.1.97 billion shares outstanding; note the 1-for-4 split in February 2025 when comparing per-share metrics across periods.
Risks
Dividend sustainability is a near-term risk with a 116% TTM payout and 0.86x cover. Margin pressure in healthcare, including NMRA price cuts cited in recent coverage, could persist. Macro and sector backdrops are mixed as at 6 August 2026: inflation at 7.3% raises logistics and consumer-cost risks for retail exposure, and a new 10% US tariff regime and labour shortages create headwinds for export and agri-linked segments, while easing local rates could help finance costs.
Outlook
Next event is the June 2026 quarter filing, due now and expected by 28 October 2026. As at 6 August 2026, the key watch is whether net profit stabilises and the below-the-line burden eases from March’s LKR 1.04 billion. Any disclosures on the Zydus JV rollout would add colour on medium-term healthcare manufacturing upside.