Yenom to introduce a British hedge

Yenom (Pvt) Ltd, a US based financial services company which made waves in the Colombo stock market last year, is gearing to bring a British hedge fund to Sri Lanka, according to a top official in the company.

“We are planning to introduce this fund hopefully within this month,” Kosala Heengama, Director, Yenom (Pvt) Ltd told The Sunday Times FT. He said Yenom, which is money spelt backwards, is also in talks with two foreign investment companies to do deals similar to the Walker and Greig (now changed to Environmental Resources Ltd - ERL) deal they did last year. “We are looking at offering them low valued investments with high growth potential,” he added.

He said Yenom is on the lookout for renewable energy projects, land development projects and investments in the banking and financial sectors and hotels among a host of others. “Except for import and export businesses, we are looking at all other investments,” Heengama said. “Where there is inefficiency, we see opportunity. We will consider any financially available opportunity – even takeovers. We want to structure deals which will attract the investors,” he added.

He said in the ERL, they are trying to restructure the company as an investment firm and looking at using it as a special projects vehicle (SPV) to utilise it to do other investments in Sri Lanka or outside. “ERL is an investment holding company and we are planning to buy shares of other companies, both listed and private firms, locally and internationally,” he explained.

Heengama said Yenom, which is the eyes and ears of its foreign investors in Sri Lanka has looked at a lot of projects which are mostly Sri Lankan for ERL. “But presently we needed to get our structure right and get this vehicle on the move,” he said.

He added that Yenom is discussing with the Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE) to do a ‘class listing’ for ERL. “With the introduction of the new Companies’ Act, a company can categorise its shares, land, buildings or other companies it owns for an example, into different classes, such as class A, class B or class C and list those particular classes in the CSE,” he said.
“We were told this type of listing is going to take sometime and presently we are structuring the classes and discussing the procedure with the CSE,” Heengama said.

He noted that Sri Lanka has the potential to be a ‘mini India’, because there are many investors especially Indians who are looking at other places to invest. “The Indian stock market is booming and their financial markets are growing at about eight present,” he said.

“Other than import and export business, we do not see a high risk in this country, but the downside here is that the negative news, which may not be so true at times, may actually not help with the investors we are trying to attract,” he said. Yenom’s board comprises its founders, Heengama and Scott Newsome.