1
ISSN: 1391 - 0531
Sunday, December 24, 2006
Vol. 41 - No 30
Financial Times  

Harry's Empire

By Duruthu Edirimuni

The Sunday Times FT was able to crack the complicated company structure of Stassen Exports Limited, Milford Exports Limited and CBD Exports Limited which are manipulated and controlled by business tycoon Harry Jayawardena.

The tables below depict the complex structure in a simplified manner. Please note the interconnected shareholdings of different companies. Example- DCSL owns MHL which in turn owns BPL which in turn owns DCSL.
A table of abbreviations of company names is given in figure 2.

The holdings of the four main directors

pic

SEL - Stassen Exports Limited
MEL - Milford Exports Limited
CDB - CDB Exports Limited

Figure 1
Shows the shareholdings of the four directors of the three companies.Please note how Harry Jayawardena has secured the most amount of shares in each company.


pic

BBH - Bentota Beach Hotel
HNB - Hatton National Bank
LMF - Lanka Milk FooFoods
DCSL - Distilleries
Company of Sri Lanka MPL - Madulsima Plantations Limited
BPL - Balangoda Plantations Limited
ASpence - Aitken Spence & Company
MHL - Milford Holdings (Pvt) Ltd

Figure 2
Shows the three main companies' structures getting complex with each buying into different companies either directly or indirectly. This is the secon tier spilling over into the third and fourth tiers.

This is the investment arm of DCSLwhich was established together with another subsidiary Aitken Spence & company Ltd and was used to conduct many of its acquisitions such as Sri Lanka Insurance Corporation Ltd, Lanka Bell (Pvt) Ltd and National Asset Management Ltd.


The third tier in the empire

pic

Figure 3
Shows the connection between SLIC and the third tier consisting MPL, BPL, ASpence, MHL , LankaBell and Sampath Bank of the company structure.


Distilleries Company of Sri Lanka (DCSL)

pic

Figure 4 and 5 show the holdings by DCSL and SLIC, which have been making most forays into companies.


SLIC acquisitions

pic

Figure 5
Controlling stake of 75 percent at Sri Lanka Insurance Corporation Ltd (SLIC) was purchased in April 2003 by MHL which subsequently increased and now stands at 85.1 percent. This investment has given DCSL (refer figure 4) entrance to the valuable insurance sector and within three years under DCSL control, the company has shown a 47.4 percent compound growth in Turnover. More than 95 percent of the earnings are derived by three sectors, with beverages insurance, telecommunications and most recently healthcare .

 
Top to the page


Copyright 2006 Wijeya Newspapers Ltd.Colombo. Sri Lanka.