Dividend of Rs 2 per share, a company record for shareholders:

Bartleet TransCapital profits high

Bartleet TransCapital Ltd. (BTCL), the Bartleet & Co's Financial Services Group, has achieved profit after tax of Rs 1.2 billion for the nine months ending December 31, 2010, a near ten-fold growth over its net profit for the full year in 2009-10.

A S Jayawardena, Eraj Wijesinghe and Indrajith Fernando

The company's turnover of Rs 225 million from operations was boosted by gains of Rs 700 million from its strategic alliance with the global financial services giant Religare Enterprises Limited and from investments in shares in the review period.

In its Annual Review for the year ending March 31, 2010, BTCL announced that all of the Group's companies had recorded healthy profits. Consequently a dividend of Rs 2 per share, a company record, is being paid to shareholders.

Explaining the shift in fortunes, Bartleet TransCapital Chairman A S Jayawardena noted that global growth impulses are moving towards the Asia region.

"Sri Lanka should endeavour to re-orient its trade toward these emerging centers of growth whilst ensuring it maintains the traditional markets," he said.

Bartleet Finance Chairman Eraj Wijesinghe recalled that 2009 and 10 was one of the most critical periods in the history of the financial services industry in Sri Lanka, as a result of the global financial crisis and the collapse of a large unlicensed local group. Nevertheless, Bartleet Finance was able to meet each and every withdrawal including those within 24 hours, despite the additional pressures on this sector, he said.

Bartleet TransCapital Managing Director Indrajith Fernando noted that the change in demand by the company's patrons, with greater emphasis towards an end-to-end service that consisted of one optimized strategy rather than several potentially conflicting ones.