AUDITORS LEAGUE

ERNST & YOUNG LEADS FOR THE FIFTH CONSECUTIVE YEAR

Ernst & Young (EY) dominates the LMD 100 auditors league for the fifth consecutive year with 44 sign offs to its credit, dropping just one from its tally in the previous edition. The firm was appointed to audit the financial statements of four of the LMD 100’s top five entities in financial year 2021/22 – viz. Expolanka Holdings, Hayleys, LOLC Holdings and John Keells Holdings (JKH).

KPMG retains its number two spot with 40 sign offs – that’s one more than in 2020/21. The firm took on statutory audits for four of the entities that feature among the LMD 100’s top 10 – viz. Carson Cumberbatch, Bukit Darah, CT Holdings and Cargills (Ceylon).

Together, EY and KPMG have once again signed off on the statutory audits of a combined 84 LMD 100 corporations for 2021/22 as they did in the previous year.

In the meantime, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) comes in a distant third with nine audits of LMD 100 companies – although that’s two more than in the preceding year. Among them is Dialog Axiata, which claims eighth spot on the LMD 100 Leaderboard.

Once more, three of the ‘Big Four’ global audit firms served over 90 percent of Sri Lanka’s 100 leading listed companies in the 2021/22 financial year.

The Auditor General’s Department signed off on three LMD 100 audit reports, and BDO Partners, B. R. De Silva and Baker Tilly Edirisinghe accounted for the remaining four.

Kreston MNS doesn’t feature in this year’s auditors league though it did so in financial year 2020/21 with one LMD 100 scalp to its name.

LAWYERS LEAGUE

NITHYA PARTNERS AND JULIUS & CREASY SHARE HONOURS

Nithya Partners maintains its position as one of the preferred providers of legal services among the LMD 100 in financial year 2021/22; the law firm was the choice of 12 leading listed corporates, albeit two clients less than in the previous year.

Julius & Creasy ties for the top spot, retaining its 2020/21 clientele of 12 from among the corporates named in the LMD 100 in this financial year too.

In second place is F. J. & G. De Saram, which provided legal advice to eight companies in this year’s LMD 100 – as it did in the previous financial year.

D. L. & F. De Saram offered legal counsel to three clients listed in the LMD 100. And Neelakandan & Neelakandan and Heritage Partners counted to two apiece, while Nithi Murugesu & Associates and Paul Ratnayeke Associates serviced one LMD 100 client each.

Only 37 of the companies that make up the LMD 100 disclosed their lawyers or legal consultants in the corporate information sections of their 2021/22 annual reports

Ten LMD 100 entities – viz. LOLC Holdings, Nestlé Lanka, CIC Holdings, LOLC Finance, Ceylon Tobacco Company (CTC), Ceylon Grain Elevators, Sunshine Holdings, Softlogic Life Insurance, Sampath Bank and Printcare – appointed joint lawyers for 2021/22.

DESIGNERS LEAGUE

EMAGEWISE STILL THE FAVOURITE FOR DESIGN SERVICES

Emagewise remains the most sought after creative firm vis-à-vis designing annual reports for LMD 100 corporations as it leads the designers league for the 14th consecutive year. In the period under review, it served as design partner to no less than 49 of Sri Lanka’s leading listed companies a.k.a. the LMD 100.

This is an improvement on its portfolio by the addition of three clients from the previous financial year when Emagewise collaborated with 46 LMD 100 entities in presenting their annual reports.

Optima Designs takes second place in the creative stakes, having designed eight annual reports in 2021/22.

Smart Media, RedWorks and Copyline tie for third spot with seven clients apiece from the LMD 100 entities.

Cumulatively, these five design firms account for over 75 percent (78 annual reports, to be precise) of corporates featured in the latest edition of the LMD 100 – deemed to be Sri Lanka’s version of the Fortune 500 and launched as The LMD 50 back in 1994.

The remainder of LMD 100 annual reports were designed by other creative agencies including Mediawize (which counts four reports to its credit, improving from two in the previous year).

This year, only 88 of the LMD 100 companies disclosed the designers of their annual reports. In the preceding period, as many as 94 of LMD 100 corporates cited their design partners in their annual reports.

PRINTERS LEAGUE

SOFTWAVE LEADS PRINTERS LEAGUE WITH 15 ASSIGNMENTS

Once again, and for the eighth consecutive year, LMD’s longstanding print partner Softwave Printing & Packaging (Softwave) finds itself at the top of the league by virtue of being the print partner for 15 of the nation’s leading quoted companies in the period under review.

Softwave added a couple more corporate clients from the previous year to increase its tally in the 2021/22 edition of the printers rankings of the LMD 100.

Gunaratne Offset takes the number two spot for being the printer of choice for the annual reports of 13 corporate clients listed in the LMD 100. In financial year 2020/21 too, the same number of companies entrusted the printer with their annual report production.

Optima Designs is the second runner-up in the LMD 100 printers league by improving its portfolio to four clients from three in the previous financial year.

Printage and Aitken Spence Printing & Packaging share fourth place with three LMD 100 annual reports each – they lost two and one print jobs apiece respectively from the 2020/21 financial year.

The leader in the designers league Emagewise (two), together with Printel and Nethu Print Solutions (one each), also produced annual reports from their presses.

Meanwhile, Ceylon Printers and Karunaratne & Sons – both with a showing in the 2020/21 league with a single LMD 100 client each to their credit – did not feature in this period’s list.

Notably, less than half (45) of the LMD 100 entities chose to disclose their print partners in the financial year under review.

BANKERS LEAGUE

HNB AND COMBANK ARE THE FRONT-RUNNERS IN 2021/22

Hatton National Bank (HNB) maintains its pre-eminence as a banking partner of choice with 78 (serving three more corporates compared to the previous year) of Sri Lanka’s leading listed companies accessing its services in financial year 2021/22.

Commercial Bank of Ceylon (ComBank) too serviced 78 clients in this edition of the LMD 100 (compared with 71 in 2020/21), to share the top spot with HNB this year.

Sampath Bank leapfrogs over last year’s third placed Bank of Ceylon (BOC) to take second place with 66 LMD 100 clients (with the addition of six more corporate accounts this year), while the state owned BOC is a close third with 65 corporates from the list (up by one client in 2020/21).

In this period, once again National Development Bank (NDB), DFCC Bank, Nations Trust Bank, People’s Bank, Seylan Bank and Standard Chartered Sri Lanka served over half of the LMD 100 entities (i.e. with 50 or more in the bag, so to speak).

Corporate client lists also run into the double digits for others in the bankers league: Pan Asia Banking Corporation (31), HSBC (30), Deutsche Bank (26), Union Bank of Colombo (24), Cargills Bank (23), Citibank (20) and Muslim Commercial Bank (11).

The three largest state banks – viz. BOC, People’s Bank and National Savings Bank (NSB) – cumulatively serviced 129 LMD 100 clients in 2021/22, which is four more than in the prior year.

Once again, only 86 companies ranked in the LMD 100 disclosed their bankers in the corporate information section of their 2021/22 annual reports.

 Only 86 of the companies that make up the LMD 100 disclosed their bankers in the corporate information section in the 2021/22 annual reports. (86 in 2020/21)