Janashakthi IPO seen driven by retailers
The Janashakthi Insurance Company Ltd's (JICL) Initial Public Offer (IPO) which opens tomorrow is likely to be oversubscribed, according to stock market analysts.

"The JICL IPO will be oversubscribed mainly because of the price it is coming out at," a stock market analyst said. A share is priced at Rs.12.

He said retail brokers are promoting it, because in 'absolute' terms, the price is low. But he noted that institutional and foreign interest in the stock is low, because its fundamentals are low.

The share issue, amounting to a maximum of 33 million ordinary shares in two tranches of Rs.16.5 million shares will generate Rs.396 million, which according to the company will be utilised in expanding JICL branch network and upgrading its IT infrastructure.

Touchwood shows Rs 284 mln net profit
Touchwood Investments Ltd (TIL), Sri Lanka’s only public quoted commercial forestry plantation company, on Friday announced a net profit of Rs 284 million for the year to March 31, 2008.
The company said its revenue for the same period was Rs 600 million.

“Our profits have increased by nearly four-fold in comparison to the previous financial year. The revenue too has increased by 29%. This portrays the stable commercial growth of TIL. In addition, these figures clearly indicate that the public have placed their trust on TIL and have increasingly invested in various schemes offered by us,” TIL CEO Asitha Koralage said.