The board of directors of John Keells Holdings PLC was last week fully briefed on the Supreme Court judgment relating to its fully-owned subsidiary, Lanka Marine Services Ltd. (LMS) and the company said it will ``fully comply'' with the determination.

JKH directors remained tight-lipped on other matters discussed except for saying that the ``company will continue to serve all its stakeholders with the highest standards.''

This was the first board meeting that had been held since the judgment was delivered.

Business continued, post-judgment, at LMS with ships calling in Colombo supplied with bunkers. This activity is expected to continue up to Aug. 20 when possession of the shore facility from which the bunkering activity was serviced must be returned to the Sri Lanka Ports Authority.

Industry sources said that over the six year period during which JKH operated LMS, for which a price of Rs. 1.1 billion was paid to the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation, substantial investment had been made in upgrading the business.

At least three other players, one of whom is no longer in business, have been supplying bunkers in the Port of Colombo from water based facilities - mother ships.

Meanwhile JKH on Monday booked a capital gain of slightly over Rs. 1 billion and a cash flow twice as big on the sale of its stake in Associated Motorways, a company founded by the late Sir Cyril de Zoysa, with AMW Chairman Ajita de Zoysa, the controlling shareholder of Associated Electrical Corporation (AEC) which in turn controlled AMW, selling out to Al-Futtaim, an automotive, retail, electronic and financial services conglomerate with headquarters in Dubai.

This JKF part of the deal was done by John Keells Capital, a division of JKH set up about one and a half years ago to invest in non-core businesses with links to the conglomerate's existing businesses.

`` The idea was to invest in such businesses and exit if the price was right and AMW (where JKH had a 20% stake) was the first such exit,'' a senior JKH source explained.

Asked whether long-term plans of developing prime city contiguous properties belonging to JKH and AMW, on the basis of which JKH invested in AMW, would no longer apply, he said: ``No. The agreement between AMW, JKH and Finlays (which also has contiguous property in the area) recently sealed with an MOU stands.''

At the close of trading on the Colombo Stock Exchange on Friday, Al-Futtaim had acquired just under 80% of AMW and had announced an unconditional offer of the Rs. 174.50 price to all minority shareholders of the company.

``Many people are selling ahead of the mandatory offer,'' Prashan Fernando of DFCC Stockbrokers said. ``They see an advantage in cashing in on high interest rates right now instead of waiting for the offer to be completed some weeks down the road.''