Many northern region businessmen are only aware of bank funding (loans) as the source of capital for their businesses and have little knowledge on advantages of listing in the stock market, said Managing Director of Atarah Capital Rohan Senewiratne at panel discussion titled “The Journey Towards Listing & Life After Listing” at the North Gate Hotel in Jaffna.
The event was organized by Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE) in collaboration with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) CATALYZE Sri Lanka Private Sector Development (PSD) Activity, organized an Issuer Forum in Jaffna in February. He noted the importance of having a capital structure within an organization where a healthy ratio of Equity and Debt Capital is maintained.
He said that solely depending on bank funding, a large portion of hard-earned profits are sacrificed to Banks as interest payments, both in good times as well as in bad times. “Entrepreneurs face the risk of losing their assets pledged as collateral (during parate executions), when loan repayments become challenging during times of business slowdown in crises like COVID pandemic in 2020/2021 and during the Economic Crisis in 2022.
“A remedy to mitigate this risk would be to list their companies in the CSE and achieve a healthy mix of equity and debt capital,” he said.
This is the third time within the last 6 months Atarah Capital has been invited to participate and contribute to Issuer Forums. USAID Director of Economic Growth Christopher Powers said, “The United States supports the free flow of capital to help grow Sri Lanka’s economy and through CATALYZE PSD, USAID has supported companies in the food, agricultural, and ICT sectors in the Northern Region. “
Entrepreneurs and Business personnel representing the sectors of Food and Beverage, Hospitality, Healthcare, Manufacturing and Exports were present at the captioned Forum.
The post “Many northern region businessmen have little knowledge on advantages of listing in stock market” appeared first on DailyNews.