Citrus hotels in two years
Charumini DE SILVA
Citrus Leisure PLC has made several investments in its newly
incorporated subsidiary companies Waskaduwa Beach Resort Limited and
Kalpitiya Beach Resort Limited, a Colombo Stock Exchange filing said
yesterday.
The company invested Rs 880 million to subscribe for 88 million
ordinary shares of Waskaduwa Beach Resort Limited representing 62.85
percent of the issued shares. Waskaduwa Beach Resort Limited has also
concluded a private placement of 52 million shares at Rs 10 per share to
raise funds to finance the construction of a hotel project in Waskaduwa.
The company also invested an amount of Rs 1046.5 million to subscribe
for 104.65 million ordinary shares of Kalpitiya Beach Resort Limited
representing 72.18 percent of the issued shares while the Resort has
also concluded a private placement of 40.35 million shares at Rs 10 per
share to fund construction of the Kalpitiya hotel project.
Subsequent to the private placement of shares, both Waskaduwa Beach
Resort Limited and Kalpitiya Beach Resort Limited will apply to the
Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE) and Securities and Exchange Commission of
Sri Lanka (SEC) to list shares of these companies.
The Citrus Leisure PLC is planning to complete the two hotel projects
in Waskaduwa and Kalpitiya with an investment of over Rs two billion
within the next two years, Citrus Leisure PLC Director Dilip Jayaweera
told Daily News Business.
He said with the commencement of these two hotel projects, the
company will have the ability to provide around 1,000 job opportunities.
"The main reason that we selected Waskaduwa was that it is a unique
location, which has a 700-metre seashore with close proximity to
Colombo.
Kalpitiya is also placed in a strategic location in the tourist zone,
where travellers have the opportunity of whale and dolphin watching. It
is not only the beach that the tourists could enjoy, but being close to
Wilpattu makes it a location for wildlife too," he said.
The total cost of these two projects are around Rs four billion.
However, the company has no intention of entering into foreign
collaborations in completing the two mega hotel projects.
The existing hotel in Hikkaduwa owned by the Citrus Leisure PLC has
performed outstandingly during the past nine months. The performance of
this hotel is encouraging as it achieved a higher growth than expected.
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