Financial Times - Lanka Walltile confident of competition-report

Lanka Walltile confident of competition-report

Lanka Walltile Ltd (LWL), Sri Lanka’s biggest ceramic tiles manufacturer, is confident of overcoming any new competition -- with imports being the company’s main competitor, a Colombo broking firm said.Bartleet Mallory Stockbrokers (Pvt) Ltd said in a report that LWL commands a 40-50% share in the total local market.

LWL is presently the sole domestic walltile manufacturer and exports a significant amount of production all over the world with USA and Canada being the main buyers.“Both its factories at Balangoda and Meepe, each produce on average 4000 sq metres per day and the growing heavy demand for the larger tile produced at Meepe has resulted in LWM deciding to double capacity with an additional factory at a cost of Rs.700 million fully financed by debt.”

While the project is still in the finalization stage, the new machinery that will be required is to be imported from Italy and is expected to be fully operational within 15 months,” the report said.

The broking report said the stock is currently trading cum dividend of 22.5% at Rs.52.50 and based on a forecast EPS of Rs.10.17. “With strong earnings potential LWL appears

to be an excellent investment and inspite of the political setbacks has provided a capital gain of 57% from Jan 2006 to date,” the report said.

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