Lankan professionals have lost their integrity, ethics and high standards, says CSE Chairman

While there are many ways for an educated individual to reach great heights in the professional career, Sri Lanka today is facing a major issue in terms of adhering to compliance and ethics, a top official at the Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE) said.

CSE Chairman Vajira Kulatilaka made this comment to the Business Times on the sidelines of the 9th Annual CFA Society Sri Lanka Research Challenge Awards held at the Ramada Hotel in Colombo last week.

Expressing disgust and frustration over these issues, Mr. Kulatilaka said, "People who have kept their integrity to high standards protecting those values are a minority today. There are two ways to become top high ranking professionals who earn millions of rupees either ethically and unethically. It's very sad that a lot of people do it unethically."

The country has gone too far into corruption and no legal system in Sri Lanka will do anything in that sense, Mr. Kulatilaka noted while adding that high integrity was considered as a norm at the time when corrupt people were considered a minority. "Keeping up the standards and values and going on a journey slow and steady, inculcates a professional life and when you do it, you will achieve what you want."

He also stressed that professionals do not stop at any point where the career goes on till death. "You need to have the desire and hunger to acquire knowledge that will make you improve. Today with Internet a lot of knowledge can be acquired and that's the way forward."

The four finalists at the 9th CFA Sri Lanka Research Challenge were University of Sri Jayewardenepura, University of Kelaniya, Royal Institute of Colombo and University of Colombo. The research challenge began in June 2016 and Royal Institute of Colombo won the competition while University of Colombo emerged runners up. The students presented their analysis on buy, sell or hold recommendations of one of the largest conglomerates in the country, Sunshine Holdings PLC.

When the Business Times spoke to the winning team, one of the team members mentioned that as the first conglomerate in the CFA Research Challenge apart from the stand alone companies which used to be the normal practice, Sunshine Holdings PLC was chosen to review its financial stability. "The company did not disclose any information apart from the financial reports they had already prepared for the year 20152016. We were doing the research while working and studying. All five of us worked on different topics by ourselves and did our part to put them together. We will be competing at the Asia Pacific Regional finals in Bangkok in March this year and if we succeed, we will compete in the global finals in Prague, Czech Republic. It was difficult when we started the research but with time everything became easier with the flow."

A team member from the Colombo University said, "The disclosure of conglomerates was minimum in terms of getting valuations and coming up with assumptions with all five of their industry segments. We got the industry information associated with the company. From the reports we prepared we were four marks behind and the final catch up presentation was not enough for us to win the competition."

CFA Sri Lanka Vice President and Research Challenge Chairperson, Zaffar Jeevunjee said, "This competition enables Sri Lankan university students to learn and develop best practices in equity research. The training and mentoring they receive during this competition from CFA charter holders, industry experts, as well as the senior management of the target company is an invaluable complement to their regular course work."