Sri Lanka has set up a management company to manage several defunct state enterprises prior to a listing of a partial stake on the Colombo stock exchange, a senior finance ministry official said.Six state-owned enterprises are to be brought under the newly established State Resource Management Company, B M S Batagoda, director-general of the state enterprise department of the finance ministry told Vimasuma.com, our sister news website.
These are the Embilipitiya Paper Corporation, Kantale Sugar Factory, Lanka Ceramic, Mawanella Rubber Factory, BCC Lanka, and Salu Sala, a state retail chain.
The government plans to subsequently to list shares in the State Resource Management Company on the Colombo bourse while retaining a controlling stake.The chief value of the government is presently making an assessment of the assets of the six enterprises after which it will decide how many shares to issue and their value, Batagoda said.
The government has already announced it plans to list stakes in the state-owned Sri Lanka Insurance Corp, Lithro Gas, a previously privatised state gas distributor brought back under government control with the buying out of Shell, and Sri Lankan Catering, the profitable catering arm of the loss-making national airline.
Government policy is to retain control of what it considers key state enterprises while listing partial stakes to encourage public share ownership and better management of state assets.
Colombo stock exchange officials have said they expect about 75 initial public offers, mainly by the private sector, in 2011 with about 40 IPOs in the first half of next year alone.
Recent IPOs have been heavily over-subscribed owing to pent-up demand for shares with company earnings increasing and economic growth accelerating after the end of the island's 30-year ethnic war in May 2009.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.