Sarvodaya Development Finance Ltd commences trading at CSE

The shares of Sarvodaya Development Finance Limited commenced trading on the Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE) yesterday with a bell ringing event at the CSE.

The listing follows a successful Initial Public Offering (IPO) by the company, through which it raised approximately Rs. 01 billion through a share issue of 45.45 million at an issue price of Rs. 22.00 each, the company said in a media release.

Chairman of Sarvodaya Development Finance Limited Channa De Silva, CEO of Sarvodaya Development Finance Nilantha Jayanetti, Chairman & Managing Director of Dollar Corporation Dr. Thirugnanasambandar Senthilverl, MD / Group Chief Executive Officer of Janashakthi Group,  Ramesh Schaffter, Chairman of Sarvodaya Thalawila Society Nimal Marasinghe and Director/ CEO of NDB Investment Bank Darshan Perera joined the event.

The CSE was represented by Chairman Dumith Fernando, Chief Executive Officer Rajeeva Bandaranaike and Chief Regulatory Officer Renuke Wijeyawardhane at the event.

Chairman of the CSE, Dumith Fernando, speaking at the ceremony, welcomed the company to the CSE. “The company has had an exceptional track record of growth over the last few years and has shown readiness to be a listed company as evidenced by its transparency and governance through its award winning annual reports as well.

Sarvodaya Development Finance Limited (SDF) which is part of the Sarvodaya Movement in Sri Lanka is the first impact investment opportunity to come to the public market.” And we are confident that this will provide and investment opportunity for investors to participate in creating social and economic value across communities in Sri Lanka,” he said.

Speaking at the event, Chairman of Sarvodaya Development Finance Limited Channa De Silva, said, "Dr. A. T. Ariyaratne, 62 years ago to be precise, started the Sarvodaya Movement. Midstream, he realized empowering the villages through economic intervention was extremely valuable and required, in the process of development. Thus, he started SEEDS. SEEDS, which is Sarvodaya Economic Enterprise Development Services was started 32 years ago with single minded purpose to empower the villages and he did it with 100,000 rupees. Today the 100,000 rupee book has grown to be exceeding 9 billion rupees.

“And we still travel with the single minded pursuit of empowering the villagers. We are going to be very unique in the space that we operate, in the microfinance space in the 5300 villages we operate and which we want to expand further. We are certainly the most reasonable lender in the villages,” he said.