Stock Market Review – 01st Oct 2014

October, 1, 2014

Colombo equities strengthen the gains on Wednesday as both indices closed with notable returns. Main index gained 40.94 points or 0.56% to end at 7,293.08 while S&P SL20 index gained 26.81 points or 0.66% to end at 4,065.11.

The gains were led by the price progression in counters such as Dialog Axiata (closed at LKR 12.00, +4.4%), John Keells Holdings (closed at LKR 258.00, +1.7%) and Commercial Bank (closed at LKR 157.30, +0.9%). Accordingly positive moments in sectors such as Trading, Information Technology and Telecommunication affected favorably to the index performance.

arket turnover was LKR 2.7bn. Several crossings were recorded in Access Engineering (4.9mn shares at LKR 29.50 per share), Arpico Finance Company (3mn shares at LKR 166.00 per share), Dialog Axiata (2.4mn shares at LKR 12.00 per share), Commercial Bank non-voting (1.3mn shares at LKR 113.80 per share), Commercial Bank (0.4mn shares at LKR 157.00 per share), Hatton National Bank non-voting (0.3mn shares at LKR 147.50 per share) and Hatton National Bank (0.2mn shares at LKR 194.00 per share). Aggregate value of crossings represented 37% of the total market turnover.

Accordingly Arpico Finance positioned at the top of the turnover list with LKR 502mn followed by Access Engineering (LKR 239mn) and Pan Asia Bank (LKR 189mn).

Associated Motor Finance (AMF) announced that the company purchased approx. 3mn ordinary shares of Arpico Finance (ARPI) at a price of LKR 166.00 each constituting approx. 40.59% of the issued shares in ARPI. Subsequent to this purchase the shareholding of AMF in ARPI increased to 41.33%. According to the announcement the selling party was Alfinco Insurance Brokers (Pvt) Ltd. Further AMF offered to purchase balance amount of approx. 4.3mn (58.67%) ordinary shares of ARPI at LKR 166.00 per share. Meanwhile Alliance Finance Company (second largest shareholder of ARPI) agreed to accept the offer of approx. 1.5mn shares (19.53%) to facilitate the Financial Sector Consolidation Process.

Out of 277 counters traded, 139 advanced, 83 slipped while 55 counters remained unchanged. Cash map inclined to 62% from 44%. 35 counters reached 52wk high prices while only 4 counters touched to 52wk low price levels.

Meanwhile finance sector counters such as Singer Finance, Lanka Century Investments and Dunamis Capital attracted heavy investor interest during the session.

Foreign investors were net buyers with net inflow of LKR 75mn after three consecutive days of net foreign selling. Foreign participation was 22%. Foreign net inflows were seen in Hatton National Bank non-voting (LKR 80mn), Access Engineering (LKR 74mn) and Dialog Axiata (LKR 71mn) while net foreign outflow was mainly seen in Commercial Bank non-voting (153mn).

Further Nation Lanka Finance made an announcement to CSE informing that the company has divested its entire shareholding of 3mn ordinary shares (75%) of its subsidiary Nation Lanka Capital (Pvt) Ltd at LKR 10.50 per share for a total consideration of LKR 31.5mn to Protégé Investment (Pvt) Ltd.

At today’s weekly primary T-bill auction, all the bids received were rejected. Initially CBSL offered LKR 1.5bn in 6 month bills and LKR 4.5bn in 12 month bills where the auction was oversubscribed with bids amounting LKR 75.6bn being received.

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