Financial Times

CalPERS adds Colombo but investments may take time
Despite the Colombo bourse going into overdrive on California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS) adding Sri Lanka to its invest list of emerging markets, market analysts said the country is not geared to offer the kind of investment portfolios it demands.

Stock market analysts said that simply because Sri Lanka made it to the list does not mean that CalPERS will invest. "We don't have the sort of blocks they want, unless they pay a premium," Tushan Wickramasinghe, Managing Director, Lanka Orix Securities Company said, adding that the fund will have to sell the blocks at a discounted price when getting out of the market.

However, he said it is a big achievement, because other large funds will be alerted and they will take the cue from CalPERS to get into Sri Lanka. Manjula Kumarasinghe, Head of Corporate and High Networth Markets at Asha Phillips Securities, said being added to the CalPERS list is not an indication of immediate foreign fund inflows. "But if at least a fraction of their investment is channelled to Sri Lanka, it will help the market to a large extent," he said.

A CSE official said it is better to be in the list than out of it. "At least you are in their reckoning and we are talking about the largest U.S. pension fund with assets of US$182 billion and US$3.9 billion invested in emerging markets as of February this year."

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