ADVERTORIAL

Enriching community with financial solutions:

SFS opens in Jaffna

The Swarnamahal Financial Services Limited Jaffna branch (SFS) was opened by the E A P Group of Companies Chairperson Dr Soma Edirisinghe at No. 338, Hospital Road, Jaffna on December 6.

At the opening, Dr Soma Edirisinghe said, "We are proud of opening a branch in Jaffna.

Thereby, the Jaffna community will be enriched with ample financial solutions which will provide immense support to their economic development."

SFS offers a wide array of convenient and flexible financial solutions throughout the year, namely, fixed deposits that offer the highest guaranteed interest in the market where a 1 percent extra interest rate is offered for the senior citizens, SFS pawning offers the highest pawning advance in the market at the lowest interest rate; SFS leasing and hire purchase also offers a highly competitive interest rate in the market with easy documentation and flexible repayment plans to suit the repayment capacity of the clients.

SFS offers a wide array of savings accounts with the highest interest rate in the market without imposing conditions to refrain withdrawing money at any desired time.

Dr Soma Edirisinghe said that friendliness, flexibility, trust and personalized service are the key aspects of SFS products and the company is enriched with the industry best IT system.

All the branches and pawning Centres are electronically linked with each other Islandwide, enabling real time transactions during 365 days of the year.

All the pawning centres including the pawning divisions of the branches are opened 365 days of the year from 8.30 am to 6.00 pm.

SFS is enriched with well-qualified and trained, young professional staff and provides regular training for employees to ensure and maintain superior service quality.

She said, "We have strategically identified six most important potential business cities to open SFS branches in 2010.

This is the fourth branch opened during 2010 and the first ever branch in the Northern Province. Further, a plan is underway to open two fully fledged branches in Vavuniya and two other pawning Centre within the next quarter."

The Chairperson said that the investment in pawning advances which was Rs 545 million as at November 30, 2009 in the financial year 2009 and 10 has been increased to Rs 1,865 million as at November 30, 2010 in the financial year 2010 and 11.

The total deposit portfolio which was Rs 1,868 million as at November 30, 2009 has made a growth of 59 percent reaching 2,976 million as at November 30, 2010 while the total asset base of the company which was Rs 2,189 million as at November 30, 2009 has been increased by 57 percent reaching Rs 3,486 million as at November 30, 2010.

She further said that the gross income which was Rs 256 million up to November 2009 has been significantly increased by 56 percent reaching Rs 400 million up to the month of November 2010 and the company has been recorded a before tax net profit of Rs 65.8 million up to November 30, 2010 in the current financial year as against Rs 5.8 million for the same period in the last financial year.

Swarnamahal Financial Services Limited now stands for sustainable growth with the trust and confidence the clients' have placed on the company.

Swarnamahal Financial Services Limited and its management are strengthened and led by Chairperson Dr. Soma Edirisinghe together with the Board of Directors; Deputy Chairman Jeewaka Edirisinghe, Executive Director Nalaka Edirisinghe, Director Deepa Edirisinghe, Director Asanka Edirisinghe, Director Sunil Abayaratna, Director Mahendra De Silva and Director and CEO Sameera Ganegoda.

Swarnamahal Financial Services Limited is an EAP Edirisinghe Company, incorporated in 2004 and registered by the Central Bank of Sri Lanka Monetary Board in August 2006. The Company's main functions are pawning, leasing and hire purchase, factoring cum cheque discounting, medium term loans, fixed deposits and savings accounts.

Mercantile Investment wins Best Annual Report Award

Mercantile Investment Ltd won the Best Annual Report Award in the Financial Companies Sector for the 11th consecutive year.

The stringent evaluation process to determine the ultimate winner is carried out by technical and industrial experts, with final markings being made by an eminent panel of judges that included the Central Bank Governor.

At the presentation ceremony held at Cinnamon Grand, the award for the Best Annual Report was accepted by the Mercantile Investment Ltd. Executive Deputy Chairman Gerard Ondaatjie.

Gerard Ondaatjie said "When contemplating our long journey of winning this award, our minds go back to 1989 - the year we first participated. From the inception our annual reports were produced to communicate yearly performances providing both financial and non-financial high quality disclosures to our stakeholders, thus going further than merely fulfilling mandatory regulatory disclosure, thereby honouring our corporate policy of ensuring voluntary transparency at all times.

Hence, we believe it truly commendable to secure this prestigious award as an unquoted institution consecutively for more than a decade, competing with many other reputed quoted companies".

Ondaatjie said, "Being in business for over four decades maintaining a growth momentum throughout, the annual report gives us the opportunity to communicate our efforts, achievements and vision to our stakeholders through our invaluable human capital.

This year was no exception as it was truly a superb team effort that made us achieve excellent corporate results, which were eventually communicated to our stakeholders through a comprehensive and informative annual report."

"Being on the verge of completing 50 years in business, our company has already embarked on well-planned growth strategies to maximize the potential presented by the dawned peace era. Accordingly we have already opened an office in Trincomalee, while plans are afoot to setup regional hubs in key provinces.

In this manner we are eager to get even closer to the people who have placed their implicit trust and confidence in our strong professionalism throughout, thus laying the groundwork to deliver even better results to all our stakeholders who are undoubtedly very proud of what has been collectively achieved thus far".

Softlogic unveils seasonal deals

Softlogic, always at the forefront of offering never better deals to its loyal base of customers has once again come out with amazing seasonal offers this Christmas. With their wide range of world reputed brands, promising 'The Best Brands and Best Deals all under one roof" there's a wide array of products on offer for the customer to choose from.

Be it a washing machine or an LCD TV, the customer is never short of scintillating choices as there is a range of world famous brands with the widest selection guaranteeing the best value for money offering, all backed by the Iron-clad Softlogic warranty and after sales service.

From the newly launched Full HD 3D Plasma and 3D LED TVs - to LCD TVs, home theatre systems, audio setups, air conditioners, digital still cameras, refrigerators, washing machines, microwave ovens, rice cookers, blenders, AV accessories, beauty care products, Dell notebooks, Xerox printers, the latest and trendiest Nokia mobile phones the choice is endless.

As a seasonal special, discounts are offered upto 50 percent on a range of consumer electronics and home appliances. Furthermore only Softlogic offers 0 percent interest payment schemes of up to 60 months with three banks, namely HSBC, AMEX and Standard Chartered banks.

This is a huge winner for customers who are looking to upgrade their home appliances or maybe even gift a loved one with a product they can be proud to own. From Panasonic, Samsung, Dell, Nokia, Candy, Cornell, Ignis, Onida, Xerox and many more global brands on offer, customers never need go anywhere else.

Customers can also enjoy the Softlogic's "Poli Free Fun" easy payment schemes, with 0 percent Interest.

Softlogic is the authorized distributor in Sri Lanka for the above mentioned brands.

Annual Report 2009:

SLT receives two awards

Sri Lanka Telecom. (SLT) received two prestigious awards for its Annual Report 2009 the Gold award under the Information Communication Technology Category of the Chartered Accountants Annual Report Awards 2009 conducted by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka (ICASL) and the award of the Best Presented Accounts under the Telecommunications Sector of the Annual Report Awards 2009 conducted by the South Asian Federation of Accountants (SAFA).

Sri Lanka Telecom won the SAFA award for the third consecutive year and the ICASL Award for the fourth consecutive year. The awards recognize excellence in preparation, content, format, presentation, financial accounts and timeliness.

This is testimony to the company's excellence in reporting - its wholehearted commitment and dedication as well as strong sense of accountability to its stakeholders to present information in the most fair and transparent manner whilst maintaining the highest standards of corporate governance - in line with best global practices.

For the virtual era:

Dell unveils open solutions

Dell's open, standards-based solutions let customers of all sizes integrate new technologies without sacrificing performance or their existing IT investments. Dell's solutions and services free customers to capitalize on the "Virtual Era" and realize new levels of enterprise efficiency, with a goal of reducing data management costs by up to 50 percent and making room in budgets for the strategic investments they need to make now.

"Enterprise innovation and efficiency depends on solutions that are open, capable and affordable," said Dell Sri Lanka Storage Solutions consultant Kaushala Lankadhikara.

"Dell's solutions are uniquely open and untethered to legacy assets and proprietary approaches to deliver against these needs. The CIO agenda isn't about managing OPEX at the expense of CAPEX or innovation. It is about driving efficiency without compromise and reinvesting the savings towards innovation and returning shareholder value," he said.

More than ever, customers are dealing with two fundamental pain points - storing and sorting the explosion of data, and managing and operating the infrastructure and applications needed to run the business. Dell's Efficient Data Centre (EDC) solutions allow enterprises to dynamically and rapidly deliver strategic IT services with a host of new capabilities. This helps avoid resource silos and allows organizations to allocate resources in a dynamic manner to meet changing work load demands.

Dell Services also delivers an end to end portfolio of data centre services to help customers achieve greater efficiency in their data centre. Dell helps to extend the life of the customer's existing data centres investments through various strategies including rightsizing data centre capacity, data centre facilities design and management, virtualization and data centre migration.

With the use of modeling techniques to assess customer's data centre environments, Dell Services provide recommendations to resolve immediate problems and to address longer term issues.

Dell services and data centre consulting practice is at the heart of Dell's data centre solutions which is focused on five key areas that include data centre planning and management, platform optimization and virtualization, facilities efficiency, networking and data management.

Whirlpool Mastermind refrigerators at Singer

Featuring the latest technology and design innovations, the all-new range of automatic Whirlpool Mastermind refrigerators was recently launched by Singer Sri Lanka at the Hotel Taj, Colombo.

As the exclusive distributor for this premium line of Whirlpool refrigerators, Singer is looking forward to continuing to give its customers the very highest levels of quality, through advanced performance and cutting-edge design.

Speaking at the launch, Singer Sri Lanka CEO Asoka Peiris, said that Whirlpool's advanced line of Mastermind refrigerators was being introduced at the beginning of the holiday season as a gift for quality-conscious customers who demand the best.

As the world's first intelligent refrigerators, the Whirlpool Mastermind range integrates a host of groundbreaking technological innovations, perfect for Sri Lankans with a taste for world-class products.

The refrigerator incorporates a unique sixth Sense Tower Cooling system that uses a microchip to gauge the ambient temperature as well as the refrigeration load.

The Mastermind then automatically adjusts the cooling temperature, allowing owners to save electricity while ensuring optimum performance. The premium Mastermind refrigerators also feature an external electronic control panel, enabling precise temperature settings.

As Sri Lanka's No. 1 public brand and possessing a tradition of trusted excellence in the home appliances market that stretches back 150 years. Singer is synonymous with customer convenience.

It's no surprise then that the products it offers, such as the Whirlpool Mastermind refrigerator, are designed, first and foremost, with customer needs in mind. Inadequate freezer space will become a thing of the past with the Mastermind refrigerator as it has a unique flexible and adjustable freezer compartment that gives users maximum freezer space.

Forgetting to close the fridge door properly will never be a problem again - if the door is kept open for more than two minutes, an alarm will ring to alert users.

Whirlpool, one of the world's leading manufacturers and marketeers of major home appliances, has been manufacturing and marketing White Goods for a century, and is renowned for its attention to design.

Modular air-conditioner system:

Hitachi unveils FSXN

The new air conditioner system of Hitachi was launched recently at Colombo Hilton. The Hitachi Set Free FSXN Modular system is now available in Sri Lanka at a competitive price. ACMA Engineers (Pte) Ltd is the sole distributor of Hitachi air conditioner units in Sri Lanka.

The FSXN Modular system was launched at the 11th Seminar held in Sri Lanka along with the Hitachi Water Cooled R410A Chiller and Chiller related products.

The seminar was attended by many HVAC Consultants, Architects, Air Conditioning and main contractors and ACMA Engineer's customers. "We are very confident of the Sri Lankan market.

The market is growing very fast compared to the previous year's" said ACMA Engineers Managing Director Say Kin Heng.

Staying true to their motto Inspire the Generation; Hitachi has been serving the Sri Lankan customers, manufacturing energy saving and environmentally friendly products. Hitachi having been in the Sri Lankan market for more than 25 years, has sold over 10,000 packaged units and 250 chillers.

ACMA Engineers who are the sole distributors for this product has three Singaporean representative offices in Colombo which provides spare parts and after sales services.

The Hitachi Set Free FSXN R410A is a VRF multi split air conditioning system which allows the user to have several indoor units while having only one out door unit.

The Set Free FSXN integrates the compactness and lightness facilitating the user to retain the architectural beauty of the building. The new Modular system is easy to deliver and mount because of its light body.

The slim body allows the use to install it in a small space or a formerly dead space which will amount to saving space.

The Hitachi FSXN R410A consists of an inverter compressor. It allows the system to detect the number of people in the area and adjust the level of cooling on its own.

This energy saving air conditioning system is also environmentally friendly as the R410A gas does not cause the depletion of the ozone layer.

For ICASL members:

HNB Assurance launches insurance scheme

A special group life insurance scheme is being offered by HNB Assurance PLC to all members of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka (ICASL).

The group life insurance scheme, consists of five options including two additional benefits, namely the critical illness benefit and the hospitalization daily benefit.

An exchange of documents between ICASL and HNB Assurance to this effect took place at the Institute's premises on December 9, 2010.

ICASL President Sujeewa Mudalige, HNB Assurance Managing Director Manjula de Silva, the Institute's CEO Aruna Alwis, Council Member and Member Relations Committee Chairman Channa Manoharan, ICASL Member Relations Director Senaka Abeyakoon, HNB Assurance Life General Manager Indrani Weerasinghe, HNB Assurance Life Servicing Manager Dinesh Udawatte and Life Servicing Senior Executive Asela Bandara, were present at the occasion.