Mercantile Investments wins three prestigious global accolades at ARC Awards

Friday, 25 November 2016 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

(From left) Finance Director Shermal Jayasuriya, Managing Director Gerard Ondaatjie, General Manager Finance Deva Anthony

As an organisation renowned for winning awards in the corporate world for producing exceptional annual reports, Mercantile Investments and Finance Plc (MI) excelled in financial reporting this year once again.

The company won three international awards at the prestigious ARC Awards 2016 held in New York, US, affirming the global excellence present in its 2016 annual report, ‘A Model for Financing Life’.

MI bagged the Silver Award for the best Non Traditional Annual Report (Financial services: General), Bronze Award for the best report under ‘Printing and Production’ (Financial services: General) and Honors for the Financial Data in the same segment. This follows MI’s recent feat at the Integrated Reporting Awards 2016, organised by the Institute Certified Management Accountants of Sri Lanka (CMA), where the same report won the All Island Integrated Reporting Bronze Award, surpassing several leading corporate institutions in the process.

As a premier finance company, MI has stood committed in enhancing financial reporting standards over the years, and has made tremendous strides every year in upgrading reporting parameters in line with local and international standards and best practices. Moreover, the company upholds integrated thinking and for better decision-making has incorporated its ideologies in its corporate planning process. This has already guided the company towards a sustainable business journey, promoting greater cohesion and efficiency in corporate reporting and most of all supporting long-term value creation for its stakeholders.

Based on the latest published financial results, the company continued to show business solidity, recording commendable business growth while posting robust profitability levels for the six months ended 30 September. MI’s Pre-Tax Profit and Post- Tax Profits stood robustly at Rs. 372 million and Rs. 273 million respectively. The company maintained a sound 15% growth in its lending portfolio during the first half of the financial year, optimising its attractive diverse lending product mix and leveraging on its internal strengths.

Having been in the finance business for over 50 years, MI’s financial strength and stability remained solid, reflective of its strong capital base which exceeded Rs. 8 billion. MI’s core capital adequacy ratio and total risk weighted capital adequacy ratio stood well above the prudential requirements of 5% and 10% at 18.32% and 14.81% respectively.

Mercantile Investments and Finance Plc is a licensed finance company under the Finance Business Act No. 42 of 2011, listed on the Diri Savi Board of the Colombo Stock Exchange.