Stock market buoyed up by news of debt-restructuring deal with creditor nations

By Hiran H. Senewiratne

The trading activities at the Colombo Stock Exchange witnessed a positive trend yesterday after a negative streak in the past few days, following the much anticipated debt restructuring deal between Sri Lanka and its official creditors.

“The Official Creditor Committee (OCC) and Sri Lanka agreed on the main parameters of a debt treatment consistent with those of the Extended Fund Facility (EFF) arrangement between Sri Lanka and the IMF,” a statement issued by the Paris Club Secretariat said.

It is expected that this agreement will allow the IMF staff to present to the IMF Executive Board the first review of Sri Lanka’s EFF arrangement and open the way for approval of the second disbursement under the arrangement.

Amid those developments both indices moved upwards. All Share Price Index up by 61.06 points and S and P SL20 up by 21.13 points. Turnover stood at Rs 738 million with a single crossing. The crossing was reported in Hayleys Fabrics, which crossed 570,000 shares to the tune of Rs 22.5 million and its share price traded at Rs 39.50.

In the retail market top seven companies that mainly contributed to the turnover were Expolanka Holdings Rs 116 million (897,000 shares traded), JKH Rs 75 million (401,000 shares traded), Sampath Bank Rs 48.3 million (719,000 shares traded), Windforce Rs 38.2 million (two million shares traded), Lanka Milk Food Rs 35.4 million (160,000 shares traded), Central Finance Rs 29.4 million (280,000 shares traded) and Distilleries Rs 24 million (907,000 shares traded). During the day 36.3 million share volume changed hands in 7400 transactions.