When the going gets tough in Sri Lanka, NDB Investment Bank has a well-earned reputation for being among the institutions that get going.
As CEO Darshan Perera observes, the “drastic contractionary monetary policy measures being deployed to control the economic turmoil” of 2022 was the most challenging environment his management team had ever experienced. Against all odds, NDB Investment managed to complete SLRs12.2 billion ($41 million) worth of deals in the capital market.
Hardly a barn burner of a year then, and one that was as hostile to dealmaking as most bankers anywhere have ever known. Perera says this achievement shows the success of his efforts over the last 12-plus years at the helm to “make the business indifferent to the economic vagaries within Sri Lanka.”
Perera’s determination to build a stronger and nimbler cross-border investment banking operation has borne fruit over the last few years. Despite Covid-19 and Sri Lanka’s most recent economic crisis, NDB Investment has stayed the course, expanding into East African markets and Bangladesh. Indeed, Perera claims NDB Investment’s global ambitions are just getting started.
At home, NDB Investment is a banking giant. It’s a fully owned subsidiary of NDB Capital Holdings Limited, which is owned by National Development Bank.