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Echelon Magazine - June 2016

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Echelon Magazine Description:

Publisher: Capital-Media-(Pvt)-Ltd

Category: Business

Language: English

Frequency: Monthly

Intelligent Storytelling

The one thing that will define the Echelon magazine will be the quality of the storytelling. Echelon,published monthly, will cover in depth Sri Lanka’s most successful businesses, examine their winning strategiesand profile their leaders in immersive stories. Great stories are also never limited to words, and our approach includes rich photography, bold graphics and leading edge design which together will make for a compelling read.

But business doesn’t start and end in a boardroom;it extends to the golf club greens, to international travel and to pursuits that blurthe lines between commercial venture and sheer passion. The Echelon team will present the best in business and lifestyle coverage that will appeal to an exclusive and affluent readership: an otherwise hard to reach demographic.

Content will be developed by one of the most experienced and proven teams of editors, financial journalists, photographers and designers in the country.This team has already raised the bar for powerful and expertly crafted business news. Shamindra Kulamannage, will lead the editorial team.

The reputation of Echelon is being built on the separation between editorial and advertising. However we are also looking for the most creative and impactful new formats that can be applied in our magazines, iPad app as well as website to help our clients reach our audience. We are flexible and creative and we will have a solution for every single advertiser who wants to reach our audience.

We are passionate about creative results and about working with our advertisers to help them create bespoke multi platform creative solutions with our in house creative team and of course our sales team.

Echelon will be a great place to show off the products and capabilities of our clients because they will be surrounded by an editorial product that is expertly crafted, full of integrity and intelligence.

In this issue

Who Runs First?

Sri Lanka’s debt addiction has got it into trouble many times in the past. In 2016 again, it faces having to turn over a large chunk of foreign currency loans just when conditions in the global markets for borrowers like it have taken a turn for the worse. Private portfolio managers, who now have options for higher yields from investment grade-rated issues, are punishing the irresponsible ones with refinance risks and higher prices.

Risk premiums for Sri Lankan bonds have steadily risen in the five years since 2010 when the country started frequently tapping international markets. Its 2015 $1.5 billion bond had a 4.81% risk premium over the US government bond with the same maturity. Premiums are over 100 basis points higher than five years ago.

It’s not unusual that lower middle-income countries tap international markets. However, Sri Lanka seems wholly ill informed about the discipline this requires. It has issued debt to anybody who would take some and now finds that not all who hold its bonds will refinance it at the same rates, subscribe to issue durations of its choosing or – in some cases – show any interest at all.

There are four types of lenders to governments – official ones like governments and the World Bank, non-banks like pension funds, banks including primary market participants and central banks. Being a relatively new issuer of bonds in international finance, it is strategic and prudent to have a mix of sources. The first to run are yield-hungry issuers who Sri Lanka has come to rely on heavily. At home, the worst places for a government to borrow from are banks and the central bank. These loans inevitably crowd out more productive ones to the private sector and trigger high inflation. Sri Lanka had fumbled in wisely choosing who holds its debt. It now has an opportunity for a fresh beginning with the IMF loan that has been announced.