Atarah Capital participates at CSE-USAID Issuer Forum to promote capital raising by northern SMEs

Monday, 11 March 2024 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Atarah Capital Managing Director Rohan Senewiratne (right) receiving a token of appreciation from CSE Senior Vice President Marketing Niroshan Wijesundere. USAID Activity team lead Juan Forero is also present

Atarah Capital participated at the Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE) in collaboration with the US Agency for International Development (USAID) CATALYZE Sri Lanka Private Sector Development (PSD) Activity, organised an Issuer Forum at the North Gate Hotel in Jaffna recently.

Entrepreneurs and Business personnel representing the sectors of Food and Beverage, Hospitality, Healthcare, Manufacturing and Exports were present at the Forum.

This is the third time within the past six months Atarah Capital has been invited to participate and contribute to Issuer Forums, first one of which was held in Colombo in September 2023, followed by another in Kandy in January 2024.

Atarah Capital Managing Director Rohan Senewiratne featured in the panel discussion titled “The journey towards Listing and life after Listing.” In his remarks Rohan noted the importance of having a capital structure within an organisation where a healthy ratio of equity and debt capital is maintained.

“During preliminary discussions I realised that many northern region businessmen are only aware of Bank funding (loans) as the source of capital for their businesses. I enlightened them that via 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 eg: during 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,” Rohan said during the panel discussion.