In this issue

When the river runs dry

Stampeding crowds have featured in various incarnations. Stampeding crowds have protested, demanding the political leadership, now clearly inept at managing the economy, step down. When someone, in this case, protestors, shouts ‘fire’ the resulting flight risks being trampled by falling prices, margin calls and vanishing capital in the markets.

Sri Lanka’s market for listed equities saw a dash to exit. The stock index, now weighted to reflect the volume of trades, has declined over 35% from its January 2022 peak.

The draining liquidity is not just a feature in the stock market but in the economy as a whole. Sri Lanka, which is subsidising many services where the government is a monopoly or oligopoly, is now unable to meet the demand. It also has no credible plan, so far, to navigate out of the issue. The state is both illiquid and insolvent. But that's not the end. It now faces several other crises, more fundamental, including poor leadership and a governance crisis. In this issue, we discuss how to address the liquidity crisis, and what to expect of asset markets as this crisis unfolds.

Echelon Magazine Description:

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.