Archives

Bus company listing today

by Rajmi Manatunga

Thirteen state-owned cluster bus companies will be listed in the Colombo Stock Exchange today. The period for submitting bid bonds for the divestiture, postponed several times in the last four months owing to various reasons, ended last evening leaving with five local and foreign companies in the bidding list. The bidders were required to submit a bid bond equivalent to five per cent of the minimum bid price.

The investors eligible for bidding were New Central Bus Company (Pvt) Limited, Southern Bus Company Ltd, Western Bus Company Ltd, Jayalakshmi Transport Services Ltd, ADI Holdings (Pvt) Ltd and Shoresec International (Pvt) Ltd.

These investors have expressed interest in the Mahanuwara, Rajarata, Sabaragamuwa, Colombo, Gampaha, Kalutara, Eastern, Northern, Vavuniya and Nuwara Eliya cluster bus companies. No bids have been submitted for Ruhuna, Uva and Wayamba bus companies. Although 15 investors had initially expressed an interest in buying the companies, most of them have become ineligible for bidding, being unable to show the required turnover.

Director General of the Public Enterprise Reform Commission (PERC) Deepal Gunaratne said arrangements have been made for the listing although there will be no need for a divesting process if only one party is interested in buying a particular company.

"The public-private partnership arrangement is designed to enhance the service and efficiency of the companies and the divestiture will not affect concessions like issuing season tickets. The Government will set up a Bus Monitoring Unit to oversee all this," he added. Meanwhile two CTB employees filed a case in the Court of Appeal on Tuesday charging that the PERC had disregarded the court ruling on September 24 by deciding to privatise the companies without allocating shares for the employees.

News | Business | Features | Editorial | Security
Politics | World | Letters | Sports | Obituaries |

Produced by Lake House
Copyright 2001 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.
Comments and suggestions to :Web Manager