Commercial Leasing goes for listing with Finance Company Licence
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Kapila Jayawardena
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The Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) has approved the granting of a
licence to Commercial Leasing Company Limited (CLC) to operate as a
Finance Company. This approval will require the holding company Lanka
ORIX Leasing Company (LOLC) to divest 10% of its shareholding in
compliance with CBSL’s mandatory listing rules for Finance Companies. As
a result, the company name is expected to be changed to `Commercial
Leasing & Finance Limited’ in the near future while retaining the brand
as ‘CLC’.
irector and CEO Kapila Jayawardena commented: “CBSL’s new guidelines
for Finance Companies require CLC to be listed as a finance company, and
we are confident that the shareholders of CLC will immensely benefit
from LOLC Group’s commitment to steer CLC towards rapid expansion with
volume growth with a strong foundation to build a deposit base through
the well positioned and established branch network. Since LOLC took over
ownership of CLC three years ago in May 2008, the Company’s performance
has seen consistent and strong growth in profitability.
The lending book of CLC which includes leases, hire purchases, loans,
factoring and micro financing, rapidly grew from Rs 8.9 bn as at March
2009 to Rs 24.9 bn by September 2011, recording a growth of 180%, which
reaffirms our commitment.”
A wholly-owned subsidiary of the LOLC Group since 2008, CLC was
demisted in 2009 by the parent company, which took over the entire
shareholding at the time. The company possesses a strong foundation of
24 years, backed by the might of its founders - Commercial Bank, Singer
Sri Lanka and Chemanex, before its takeover by the LOLC Group. LOLC has
been able to build on the strong foundation with shareholders’ funds
seeing an impressive growth of 280% to reach its current value of Rs.
6.4bn. The total assets of CLC grew by 176% to reach its current value
of Rs. 26bn. Profit before tax for the year ended 31.03.11 reached Rs.
741 mn, and the Company has already reached a PBT of Rs 2.9 bn for the
six months ended September 2011. |
