LOLC exits from troubled Aggalawatte Plantations

LOLC-controlled Browns Power Holdings Ltd on Monday exited from the troubled Agalawatte Plantations, which according to a weekend Business Times report owes a staggering Rs.2.5 billion with interest to 12 financial institutions.
According to an announcement in the Colombo Stock Exchange, Browns sold its entire 61 per cent stake to D.R. Investment (Pvt) Ltd at Rs. 18 per share, a slight loss compared to its buying price many months back from the Mackwoods Group.
The deal with Mackwoods was clouded in uncertainty after a family squabble at Mackwoods led to an initial suspension of the transaction by the Securities and Exchange Commission, and later allowed. 
Monday’s buyer is a subsidiary of Damro, Sri Lanka’s largest furniture manufacturer, an independent search of the Internet revealed.
Browns Power also sold its 45 per cent stake in FLMC Plantations, which was earlier controlled by the Aloysius family, for Rs.4.7 billion, also to Damro-connected companies.  The Aloysius family including Arjun own a string of firms including Perpetual Treasuries and connected companies which has been implicated in a 2015 Treasury bond scam. The group is due to start a Sinhala newspaper followed by an English-language one.  
While the exit from Aggalawatte Plantations was most likely owing to its huge debt burden, the exit from FLMC Plantations is unclear, brokers said adding that LOLC appears to have pulled out of plantations, a sector it was earlier keen to enter. – ENDS -