Ceylinco Shriram Ltd assured the Colombo Fort Magistrate on Monday that it will submit a repayment plan to depositors on August 24. This assurance was given to the court by the directors of the company including Ajith Gunawardane when the Ceylinco Shriram fraud case was taken up for hearing before Colombo Fort Magistrate Gihan Pilapitiya.
The directors of Ceylinco Shriram had initiated arrangements to formulate a plan to repay the depositors, the court was informed.
The four directors of Ceylinco Shriram Company, Lalith Kotelawala, H. K. de Silva. Padmini Karunanayake and A.D. Jayatissa were further remanded for allegedly defrauding the depositors numbering 7,000 with deposits amounting to Rs.7 billion.
The magistrate ordered to appoint Ernst & Young to prepare an audit report on Ceylinco Shriram under the directions of the Attorney General and with the consent of the aggrieved depositors of the concerned company.
The company unlike other Ceylinco group company has virtually no tangible assets. As a fund management vehicle it has invested in other companies and not in real estate, etc. But unlike legitimate fund management companies it invested principally in other Ceylinco group companies. The value of these companies has collapsed over the last few months and nothing it seems is left of the Rs. 7 billion deposited at Shriram except shares in worthless companies, legal sources say. |
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