Sri Lanka Telecom share transfer boosts turnover

April 16, 2008 (LBO) - Nearly 32 million Sri Lanka Telecom shares were traded on the Colombo bourse at 49 rupees a share, boosting turnover on an otherwise slack Wednesday, dealers said.



The transaction was a foreign-to-foreign transfer to an investment fund, said Danushka Samarasinghe, research manager at Asia Securities, the broking house which did the deal.

SLT was up 25 cents from the previous close.

Asia Securities has been active on the buying side of SLT in the run up to the sale of NTT Communications' stake in the telco to Malaysia's Usaha Tegas group and after.

The UT group, which now owns a 35.
cytotec
19 percent stake in SLT through its Netherlands Antilles unit GTH, has announced it has offered to buyout all other shareholders at 50.

50 rupees under stock exchange rules.

The SLT transaction generated a turnover of 1,574 million rupees, boosting overall turnover to 1.

776 million rupees, said Sujeeva Peiris of Bartleet Mallory Stock Brokers.

He said the market was up with interest in the tile sector as well as plantations, apart from the telco deal.

The All Share price Index ended up 22.

amitriptyline
14 points or 0.84 percent at 2,647.75 while the more liquid Milanka went up 27.

60 points to 3,318.92. .