News & market updates

Central Bank Governor said a sovereign ISB bond exchange could occur in 6–8 weeks if the government proceeds with the existing DSA and completes a comparability assessment. He said an agreement in principle exists with ISB holders, local bondholders and the ADB, with local banks to receive new bonds.

K Seeds Investments ranked L B Finance PLC and Central Finance Company PLC as the top-performing Category 1 (asset base > Rs.100 billion) finance companies for Q1 2024/25. The ranking used 10 equally weighted KPIs from interim Colombo Stock Exchange financials, including ROE, NIM, NPLs and loan growth.

K Seeds Investments ranked L B Finance PLC and Central Finance Company PLC as the top performers in Category 1 (asset base > Rs.100bn) among 27 listed finance companies for Q1 2024/25, based on ten equally weighted KPIs. The report noted sector stabilisation supported by lower borrowing costs, a stable rupee and rising loan demand.

Ordinary shares of Multi Finance Plc were delisted from the Colombo Stock Exchange on Sep 4 after the company was merged into L B Finance PLC, which had acquired a 64% stake in 2022.

Colombo Stock Exchange fell, with the All Share Index down 0.36% to 10,869 and the S&P SL20 down 0.38% to 3,058. Turnover was 759 million; top turnover/price moves included Renuka Agri Foods and Sampath Bank (up), HNB, John Keells and Commercial Bank (down), with a net foreign inflow of 0.37 million.

Colombo Stock Exchange closed down: ASPI fell 0.95% to 11,093 and S&P SL20 fell 1.26% to 3,148, with turnover at 513 million and net foreign inflow of 41.9 million. Top turnover generators included John Keells, Ceylon Cold Stores, Commercial Bank and Nations Trust; SMB Finance and Browns Investments were among gainers while several banks, Ceylon Cold Stores, L B Finance and Sigiriya were down.

Colombo Stock Exchange closed lower as All Share Index fell 0.08% to 11,494 and S&P SL20 fell 0.02% to 3,300, with differing informal election polls weighing on sentiment. Turnover was 580 million with net foreign inflow of 47.8 million; crossings included JKH, TJL and MELS, and Lanka Aluminium declared a Rs1 dividend.

L B Finance (LFIN.N0000) launched 'Al-Wadi’ah LB Gold Safekeeping', offering secure gold storage and an interest-free cash advance of up to 80% of the certificate value. The Sharia-compliant service is available across branches with Takaful insurance and competitive safekeeping charges.

LB Finance PLC has partnered with Huawei to overhaul its core banking systems, deploying Huawei OceanStor Dorado 5000 all-flash storage and migrating production services to boost IOPS, stability and response times. The new system replaced previous storage in November 2023 within three weeks and is supporting migration of servers, databases, apps and AI/BI tools.