UDA announces debenture allocations

Urban Development Authority (UDA) announced allotment of UDA Rs 10 billion debenture issue yesterday.

The National Insurance Trust Fund joined Bank of Ceylon and the Urban Development Authority, (UDA) as a substantial investor investing Rs 1.2 billion in the debenture issue of the UDA Beira Lake project. NITF Chairman Senaka D Abeygoonasekera entered into an agreement with Bank of Ceylon Chairman Dr Gamini Wickramasinghe as a prospective investor of the massive project launched by the UDA.

The UDA has allocated Rs 53 million debentures for investors below Rs 10 million as an encouragement of small-scale resident investors.

The investors who applied for more than Rs 10 million were only given Rs 6.9 billion worth of allotments.

Over Rs one billion was refunded to investors under this category, a statement from the Colombo Stock Exchange said.

The resident investors have been mainly banks, insurance companies and individuals.

“We have allocated Rs three billion debenture shares for foreign investors. However we have still not received information of non resident investors. The foreign investors were given 30 percent of the issue value on a first come first served basis,” Bank of Ceylon Investment Deputy General Manager P A Lionel told Daily News Business.

He said the UDA debenture surpassed Rs 10 billion which it expected to raise and reached Rs 11 billion at closure. Therefore, the management decided to allocate shares on the pro rata basis.

This debenture issue will enable the UDA to construct houses for dwellers living in unauthorized lands in Colombo and suburbs. The Government will be able to use these lands for commercial purposes. (HP)