Sri Lanka’s capital market is to list 50 new companies by 2015

Oct 09, 2014 (LBO) - Sri Lanka’s capital market is to list more than 50 companies in the next two to three years, Nalaka Godahewa, Chairman of the Security Exchange Commission of Sri Lanka said.

“If you look at last five years since 2009, 73 new companies have been listed,” Nalaka Godahewa, Chairman of the Security Exchange Commission of Sri Lanka said.
“Going forward we have identified the need to bring more and more companies in to the market,”

“We encourage companies to come and list with us,”

“We have about more than 50 companies in the pipeline to list. But this will take another two to three years with the process. So in 2015 there will be substantial number of companies coming into market.”

He was speaking at capital market conference 2014, which held on yesterday (9th Sep 2014).

The Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE) has 293 companies representing 20 business sectors as at 24th September 2014, with a market capitalization of 3,067.28 billion rupees data showed.

Godahewa said the capital market has gained investor confident to satisfactory level after gone through a bad patch of being accused for manipulation few years back.

“Until 2009, till the end of the war Sri Lanka’s stock was kind of a private club. It was among the group of people who understood the market and beyond that the ordinary people did not understand,”

“But after the end of the war, immediately there was a huge interest attracted to the capital market and it started growing in unprecedented growth rate,”

“In that time so many people rushed into the market without understanding the market dynamic,”
“And when the market went 7000 up and went through a correction, people who came without understanding the market dynamics were offended which led to lot of heart break,”

“Then lot of negative perceptions created about the market and that what we had to deal with within the next two years,”

“Correction of perception takes lot of time. But we gradually address those issues and have created awareness,”

“Today people are confident of what happens in the market.” Godahewa said.

He said the market is in the process of strengthening the surveillance system to address the future issues immediately.

“We do not wait till the problem get escalated. We do talk to people and we warn when needed and address the issue then and there.” Godahewa said.

Even with ranges of awareness programmes that has been carried out by the capital market, Godahewa said many companies have not understood about the opportunity in the market yet.

“That is one of the problem that we struggle,” Godahewa said.

“Because of market has been stagnated for a longer period of time, there are some company have never thought about the market,”

“The actual opportunities in the market to raise capital have not understood by the large companies yet,”

“It’s the reality.”

http://www.lankabusinessonline.com/news/sri-lanka%E2%80%99s-capital-market-is-to-list-50-new-companies-by-2015/93782800

Listing new companies is good. But we already have some mergers going on as well as de-listing. So the net might be small.

Minimum public float is good in one way, but it will also force some companies to buy back and de-list

Thanks 1St G for sharing.
Any information about 50 Companies in the Pipe Line.