Foreign selling and what was described as ‘ uncalled rumours’ have brought the John Keells Holding (JKH) Plc share price down during the last few months, according to senior JKH officials.
“We have extensive foreign holding. Therefore when a few million shares are sold it will impact the share performance in the stock market heavily. This together with the uncalled for rumours have pulled the JKH share down,” a senior JKH official, who didn’t want to he named, told The Sunday Times FT.
He rejected speculation that the company planned to pull out its buy back offer which was re-iterated in Wednesday’s announcement by the company. "We have received several inquiries as to whether JKH will pull out the share repurchase which was announced on September 25 by the company, but we are going ahead with it as announced on Wednesday," he added.
The offer period of the share repurchase is from November 4 to 18. The official said it is not necessary to get shareholder approval for the share buy back as it is on a pro-rata basis. "It is on a pro-rata basis of one share for each 25 shares held and we will be re-purchasing a maximum of 25.5 million ordinary shares," the official noted, adding that despite the price offered at (Rs. 90 per share) being way higher than the current price (at Rs. 65 levels), they still will be going ahead. The JKH share sank to Rs 64 during the week, more than 50 % down from Rs 130 a year ago in October 2007.
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