Tuesday, 13 May 2014 00:30
-
- {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
One of the longstanding promoters of foreign portfolio inflows Marianne Page yesterday declared that she sees value in the Colombo stock market.
Operating out of Singapore, Marianne told journalists in Colombo yesterday that recent foreign outflows were largely on a particular stock with funds taking profit and regional phenomenon of overall re-allocation of assets. However she said that frontier market funds remain upbeat on Sri Lanka with renewed focus and growing interest.
“Frontier funds are looking at top blue chips as well as fundamentally sound second and third tier stocks,” said Marianne, who promotes Sri Lanka via her firm Asiabox Consultancy Services Pte Ltd., and is largely responsible for bringing some of the biggest foreign funds into the Colombo stock market. Prior to running her own company she had worked in several top investment banks in Asia.
She told the Daily FT that interests and inquiries on Sri Lanka have been unprecedented post-war and engagement with clients keen on Sri Lanka have been fairly extensive though some take a longer time to come to fruition. She also said that consumer sector was among favourites whilst inflows continue to attract diversified blue chips and banks.
Noting that low liquidity was a key constraint to attract a larger pool of foreign portfolio investments Page welcomed the new SEC rules that seek to improve the public float as well as the international investor forums organised by the capital market industry.
In response to her view on the market’s integrity, she said that her clients invest in companies which have no issues of corporate governance.
