An international fund manager says the next two decades could be Sri Lanka’s period of renaissance where local businesses have the potential of creating wealth and transforming themselves into blue-chip companies which need to be communicated to the international community as Sri Lanka still suffers bad-press.

"The challenge is to tell Sri Lanka’s story. There are still a lot of misunderstandings about Sri Lanka on political and human rights issues. But there are other aspects that exist and the next two decades would be a period of renaissance where wealth is created and new blue-chip companies emerge," Founder and CEO of Leopard Capital Asia, Douglas Clayton, told journalists in Colombo yesterday.

He said Sri Lanka had the potential to grow to the higher range of middle income countries and be a regional hub for many sectors.

"I first visited Sri Lanka 18 years ago where I did a study of the Colombo Stock Exchange for some investors and from what I had seen I told them that we should open up an office in Colombo," Clayton said adding they had to wait 18 more years for the war to end.

Clayton’s company and Sri Lanka’s Orion Capital Partners have entered into a joint venture to create two funds which would mobilise foreign investments into Sri Lanka’s unlisted private companies and listed equities in the Colombo Stock Exchange.

Hong Kong Based Leopard Capital Asia began the Leopard Cambodia fund to attract foreign investments to Cambodia.

"We established Leopard Cambodia in 2008 and we had a challenge of promoting a little known country during a recession," Clayton said adding that the fund as so far attracted US$ 31 million worth of investments.

"We wanted to enter into a second country and Sri Lanka has the best opportunities right now and that is why we decided to go for the joint venture and create Leopard Sri Lanka," he said. (See article on same page)

Clayton said Sri Lanka’s profile as an investment destination has grown like it never did during the thirty-year old war.

He said many Sri Lankan companies have the potential to grow to become global players but lacked the necessary capital in which to grow to the next level.

"The Leopard Sri Lanka Fund is expected to take these companies to the next level. And this is just the beginning. The success of the fund could also create a small avalanche of other private equity funds. This would also help the country boost its foreign currency reserves as these are long term capital inflows that cannot exit for the duration of the fund, " Clayton said.

He said the fund would focus on growth sectors such as logistics, tourism and agriculture.

"Sri Lanka has the potential to be the regional leader in these sectors and play the role of service for India and Bangladesh," Clayton said.

An investment forum will be held over the next two days in Colombo where investors from Bangladesh, Europe, Hong Kong, India, Singapore and the US would be briefed about Sri Lanka’s economic prospects.