JKH revenue balloons to Rs. 32.9 billion

Business expansion in region, a long-term growth strategy:

Largest listed conglomerate: John Keells Holdings Ltd., (JKH) Sri Lanka's largest listed conglomerate with diverse business interests has increased its revenue to Rs 32.9 billion, which is a 12 per cent increase compared to last year, its annual report reveals.

As anticipated, with the change in macro fortunes during the year, the performance at the industry group level was mixed and while transportation and consumer foods and retail showed better than previous years profitability, property and financial services showed a decline and leisure and information technology showed a marked decline.

JKH Chairman Susantha Ratnayake in his message said that the Group's pre tax profits advanced to Rs 4.8 billion.

He said that most of the worlds economies are signalling signs of robust growth. The Asian economies in particular, led by China and India are recording an exponential growth on the back of stable macro economies and significant foreign direct investment inflows.

Sri Lanka must exploit these moments of time when global interest in and fund flows created by the region are at a height, Ratnayake said.

The macro vagaries affected some of our business more than other, we have been able, in general, to adopt relatively quick by to the demands of the current environment anticipating such risk and through a process that critically questions the "risk" versus 'rewards' of transaction in every aspect of our business the chairman said.

Ratnayake said that they would seek opportunities in large-scale industries such as energy, power and communication, in addition to expanding their involvement in the industries that are already involved.

In fact the JKH performance in 2006/7 was mixed though given its resilience it increased its net profit by 16 per cent to Rs 3.53 billion and pre tax profit by 11 per cent to Rs 4.79 billion. Towards this its resort business in tourism booming in the Maldives helped considerably along with the robust return from the transport sector.

He said that internationalisation, particularly via expansion in our region, is a key long term growth strategy for the Group and during the year it made strategic investments in the Maldives and India in the leisure industry.

"In the past two years alone we have invested US$ 62 million in the Maldives bringing the total number of rooms under our control to 524. The company is also looking at investment opportunities in the South Asian and Indian Ocean region. India is a growing market and we are looking at possibilities to make our presence felt in many business ventures, he said.