Corporate news

Ceylinco's Life Fund tops Rs. 20 billion

Ceylinco Life's Life Fund surpassed Rs. 20 billion at the end of the third-quarter of the current financial year, achieving another stability benchmark for Sri Lanka's life insurance leader.

A spokesman for the company said "Ceylinco Life's Life Fund stood at Rs. 20.4 billion as at September 30,2008, an increase of Rs. 4.2 billion over the preceding 12 months.

This represented a growth of 26 per cent over the figure at the end of the third-quarter of 2007 and underlined the financial strength of the company, despite the challenging macroeconomic environment and tougher local market conditions, he said.

Pointing out that all insurance companies are supervised and regulated by the Insurance Board of Sri Lanka (IBSL), he said that according to the IBSL's Annual Report for 2007, Ceylinco Insurance's Life Division accounted for a market share of 33.03 per cent on the basis of Gross Written Premium in the year reviewed. Ceylinco Life's premium income of Rs. 6.8 billion for the year ending December 2007 was Rs. 2.3 billion or 53 per cent more than the second largest life insurance business in the market, and the company's market share was 11.43 percentage points higher, the IBSL report said.

Growth in premium income and market share has been consistent over the four years since the company achieved leadership, indicating that Ceylinco Life has earned and built on the trust and confidence of its target market segments. According to figures published by the IBSL, Ceylinco Life's market share for 2004, 2005 and 2006 was 31.65 per cent, 32.36 per cent and 33.43 per cent.

Ceylinco Life is acknowledged as the benechmark for innovation in the local insurance industry for its work in product research and development, customer service and professional development. In keeping with its vision of protecting every Sri Lankan family with insurance, the company has developed many products to make insurance affordable and appealing to diverse market segments, and today has the widest portfolio of products in the local market. This approach is supported by the company's physical presence, with an islandwide branch network that is the largest in the industry.

Dipped Products posts Rs.6.3b revenue in 1H, 08-09

Dipped Products PLC (DPL), the Hayleys Group's multinational rubber glove manufacturing business has posted a turnover of Rs 6.3 billion for the six months ending September 30, 2008, achieving a 17 per cent growth over the corresponding half of the previous year.

According to figures released to the Colombo Stock Exchange turnover from Hand Protection grew 10 per cent to Rs 4.8 billion, while Plantations reflected a 34 per cent top line improvement to Rs 1.7 billion before adjusting for inter-segmental sales, in the six months reviewed.

Turnover growth in the DPL Group's plantations business was attributed to a 45 per cent improvement in turnover from tea, and a 17 per cent increase in revenue from rubber.

The chief contributors to the higher turnover in the hand protection segment were DPL's Italian marketing company ICOGUANTI S.p. A and the Group's local manufacturing companies.

Of concern to the Group in the period under review was an increase of Rs 272 million in expenditure on latex, its main raw material, fuel and gas, electricity, packing materials, chemicals and wages.

As a result, Group profit before tax, at Rs 263 million reflected a decline of Rs 90 million or 26 per cent, while post tax profit was down Rs 96 million to Rs 192 million, a drop of 33 per cent.

SLT leads Asia's on-line reporting

Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT) won the Silver Award at the prestigious 2008 International ARC Awards competition for its latest on-line Annual Report. SLT's Annual Report in print and on-line formats is produced by Smart Media. Chairman Smart Media, Vijith Kannangara received the award at an Awards Ceremony at the Jumeirah Essex House in New York. Later in Sri Lanka, SLT Chairperson, Leisha De Silva Chandrasena accepted the award from the Chairman of Smart Media at a felicitation ceremony at the SLT Headquarters in Colombo last week.

ARC Awards are regarded as the 'Oscars' of the annual reporting world and is the largest, most respected and most prestigious of more than 100 international annual report award competitions held annually around the world.

Of the 150 entrants in the on-line Annual Report category, 38 qualified for awards.

There were four Golds, seven Silvers, 14 Bronzes and 13 Honours. Globally renowned companies that won awards for their on-line Annual Reports included Daimler AG and Pepsico who won Bronze and Vienna Airport, Bank of America, Master Card Worldwide, Kellog Company and Aviva PLC, all of whom won Honours. Sri Lanka Telecom and Telecom Austria Group were the only two companies in the telecom sub-category to have won awards for their online Annual Reports. Both won Silver in the 'Telecommunications - Asia and Pacific' and the 'Telecommunications - Europe' categories. No Gold was awarded in these two categories.

The SLT Annual Report 2007 carried an innovative dual theme approach.

"Give vistas wings - Metamorphose into beauty", encapsulated the future of SLT's metamorphic journey from being a traditional telecom operator to a global IP service provider. "A decade of change for a new decade of chances", encapsulated SLT leveraging on the sound multi-dimensional platform that was built in the last decade.

No Sampath Bank rights issue

The Board of Directors of Sampath Bank has decided not to proceed with the proposed rights issue at the Extraordinary General Meeting held on Wednesday.

Due to the crisis in the world financial markets the Sampath Bank Board proposed on the strength of the proxies received from the shareholders, not to proceed with the rights issue. At this meeting shareholders also voted not to go ahead with the rights issue.