Sampath Bank (Sampath) is on the lookout to buy either part or in full other finance-related firms in Sri Lanka and also in the region, according to officials. “We are open for consolidation not only in the banking industry. If there are firms in the finance industry such as an insurance company to buy in full or a certain shareholding of it, we will consider such an offer. We (ideally) want to be an equal partner in such a deal and we do not want to be the big brother,” Harris Premaratne, Sampath CEO told The Sunday Times FT.
He noted that local commercial banks should portray the same versatility as their foreign counterparts. “Such versatility is achieved only through consolidation.
To go international we need to have big banks and the authorities need to encourage consolidation,” he said.
He noted that the local banking industry is not for consolidation, because the mindset is still not geared for it. “We must take Singapore as an example and consolidate to become big,” he added. Sampath wants to expand into other finance related areas in Bangladesh, through its Lanka Bangla subsidiary. “We are also scrutinizing to expand into other financial areas in the region,” he said. Last year Sampath brought US$ 6.5 million into the country by selling dividends which Lanka Bangla declared for the last two years.
“The stock brokering associate at Lanka Bangla is the largest in Bangladesh. So we are quite big there. In the future also we will be bringing in such profits,” he said.
Mr. Premaratne said that during the past month some US and Indian fund managers visited Sampath to discuss the bank’s way forward for the future as they wanted information to promote Sampath in their countries.
Sampath Chairman Arthur Senanayake said that the Sampath share has hit new highs for the first time in the share market as the bank is consistently reinventing itself. |
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