By Hiran H.Senewiratne
The government’s 50 percent tax incentive for new companies to be listed in the CSE will come to an end on December 31 this year. Therefore, several companies are using that opportunity to enter the capital market by way of Initial Public Offerings (IPO), CSE- Head of Marketing Niroshan Wijesundera said.
Wijesundera said that to promote the listing of local companies with the CSE, Prime Minister and Finance Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa had proposed a 50 per cent tax concession for the years 2021/2022 to be availed of before December 31, 2021, and to maintain a corporate tax rate of 14 per cent for the subsequent three years of these opting entities.
Amid those developments, trading activities at the CSE were positive at the beginning yesterday but later the market turned negative. But considerable buying interest was witnessed in plantations, manufacturing and consumer related sectors in the market, stock market analysts said.
Due to price increase in retail and consumer items in the market, the consumer sector witnessed profitability. Further, manufacturing sector entities, such as tile sector counters, also witnessed price appreciation in the stock market. Plantation sector was exceptional yesterday and its prices appreciated in a notable manner.
During the day both indices moved downwards. All Share Price Index went down by 18.54 points and S and P SL20 declined by 0.23 points. Turnover stood at Rs 7.5 billion with two crossings. Those crossings were reported in Renuka Holdings. which crossed two million shares to the tune of Rs 36.2 million and its shares traded at Rs 17.60 and Kelani Valley Plantations 350,000 shares crossed for Rs 20.3 million and its shares traded at Rs 58.
In the retail market top seven companies that mainly contributed to the turnover were, Browns Investments Rs 1.3 billion (106 million shares traded), LOLC Holdings Rs 693 million (746,000 shares traded), Sunshine Holdings Rs 584 million (15.2…