Wednesday, October 21, 2020

Trade Finance and Investments to merge with Commercial Credit and Finance

 


Sri Lanka's Trade Finance and Investments PLC and Sri Lanka's Commercial Credit and Finance PLC have declared their intention to merge the remaining company with the latter. They reported that the Central Bank approved the proposed amalgamation of Trade Finance and Commercial Credit by letter dated 21 January 2020. Further, this merger was also supported by the Board of Directors of Trade Finance and Investments PLC and the Commercial Credit and Finance PLC (COCR) on 23 September 2020.

The scheduled merger is subject to the approval of the amalgamation by the shareholders of Trade Finance and COCR in compliance with Section 241(5) of the Companies Act No. 7 of 2007. An extraordinary general meeting of COCR shareholders will convene to discuss and, if considered necessary, pass the relevant resolutions authorising the amalgamation mentioned above and related issues.

COCR currently owns 99.65 per cent of Trade Finance and Investments PLC's ordinary shares, and such claims will cancel according to Section 240(3)(a) of the Companies Act No. 7 of 2007 upon amalgamation. For each share owned in such a stock, the other shareholders of Trade Finance and Investments PLC will pay Rs. 60, and no claims in COCR and Finance PLC will allocate.

Consequently, after the amalgamation takes effect, the number of shares in Commercial Credit and Finance PLC issued will remain unchanged. Two hundred forty-seven million previously reported capital would be Rs. 2.15 billion after amalgamation. The modified floated market capitalisation was Rs. 11 million as of 21 September 2020, and it will be Rs. 984 million after amalgamation. The percentage of public holdings as of 21 September 2020 was 0.35%, and it will be 13.22% after amalgamation.

Sri Lanka ended 2018 with inflation of 4.8 per cent, and economic growth estimates at around 2.5 per cent of GDP. Most central banks globally have lowered interest rates. India's Reserve Bank has lowered interest rates to counter India's economic slowdown. Accommodation, food service, and transportation services have contracted following the attacks on Easter Sunday.

OSL Take:

The observations of the local industry savant that Sri Lanka's goal of US$ 5 billion IT exports was attainable indicate the developments recorded by the IT sector including the emergent prospects in the field. Interested foreign businesses/investors could look at investing ventures in Sri Lanka's IT sector and gain profits while expanding the local IT market.

 VBS/At/21102020/Z_TB5

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