Lak Sathosa posts monthly profit of Rs. 500,000

Lak Sathosa, a branch of the controversial Sathosa Supermarkets, has turned around by posting a monthly profit of Rs.500,000 while forcing competition to reduce prices. “We are negotiating strongly on essential items and offer them at a reasonable price and this has increased the customers since last year,” Prasanna Weerakoon, CEO Lanka Sathosa Ltd told The Sunday Times FT.

He said that this is possible due to some of the non-branded items being collected from the farmers – thereby eliminating the intermediaries and bringing in the free market competition in price. The budget outlets have also increased their presence and have counted 600,000 customers during the last three months, whereas earlier it was only 300,000.

“There has been a 100 percent increase on the number of people who call in,” he said further adding that Rs.143 million has been pumped so far to the project. “We plan to put in another Rs. 200 to Rs.300 million this year,” he said. He said Lak Sathosa operates on 14 day stock holding unlike its previous and now defunct counterparts. He said the new company which is a limited liability has a completely different structure where 55 percent is owned by Cooperative Wholesale Establishment (CWE) and 45 percent by the Treasury.
Weerakoon said that 485 of the staff who were laid off have been re-employed.