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SLC knocks out highest bidder for local TV deal

06 Jun 2015 - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) interim committee which is reeling under one mighty financial blow they received on Wednesday when they learnt that the bid for the forthcoming three test matches against India could only bring them US $ 1.4 million, have committed further financial hara-kiri by opting to offer their local TV rights for the next three years to the state owned Sri Lanka Rupavahini (SLRC) at a rate of at least Rs. 35 million below the figure quoted by top bidder Carlton Sports Network (CSN).

An SLC interim committee member revealed that Rupavahini who made an official bid of Rs. 110 million has agreed to increase their offer to Rs. 130 million, a figure which is still a staggering Rs. 35 million (more than 21 percent) less than the figure of Rs. 165 million offered by CSN.

Interestingly, all these squabbling over alleged three wrong points in the document provided by CSN had come to a halt last morning when CSN issued SLC a written assurance and agreed to pay the total of Rs. 165 million upfront, but SLC Interim Committee chairman Sidath Wettimuny said that assurance was too late as they had taken the decision to award the rights to Rupavahini on the previous night.

A financial expert expressed surprise at that excuse, saying it was unbelievable that SLC couldn’t communicate the development immediately to the interim committee members and taken a decision that was worth Rs. 35 million.

“We sat in the evening and made the decision. There is a limit. They delayed it by a week. The bank guarantee did not come at the deadline we gave them. That’s the bottom line” said SLC Interim Committee chairman Sidath Wettimuny.

Both Sports Minister Navin Dissanayake and Wettimuny insisted that their decision to kick away the higher bid was over technical issues in a Bank Guarantee they asked from CSN.

“Bank guarantee has to carry the words “unconditional” and “irrevocable”. Those conditions were not there in the bank guarantee (CSN provided). So we couldn’t accept that bank guarantee” Minister Dissanayake told “Daily Mirror”.

“We basically looked at financial capabilities, and looked at the long term situation. Committee came to the conclusion (that) safer option is to go with Rupavahini” said Wettimuny.

Asked what was wrong with the finances of CSN as the committee felt, Wettimuny refused to go into details. “I don’t think it is fair me to talk about the details, I wouldn’t be fair by CSN. We have looked at financial situations, as per the information given to us. We extended the period and asked them for a bank guarantee. We didn’t receive it when we should” said Wettimuny.

Wettimuny however revealed that they did not bother to ask for a similar bank guarantee from Rupavahini. “No Rupavahini didn’t give a bank guarantee. It is government owned. We feel we don’t need to worry about state television station” said Wettimuny, himself one of the leading businessmen of the country.

Asked why they didn’t have the same confidence about CSN who had been faithful partners of SLC for the past three years and whether CSN had defaulted due payments in the past, Wetimmuny’s answer was rather vague.

“No. They haven’t defaulted payments. But looking at what we have in hand, we made the decision. We had to look at every aspect and come to that conclusion” said Wettimuny.

“They sent us a draft (of Bank Guarantee) which had three errors. We corrected them and sent but they never sent it back to us. Even they had got SLC name wrong. They have called it an incorporated company. SLC is an association” added Wettimuny.

“We have written to them on the 27th. We gave them plenty of time. We have gone through the due process. We wanted to be fair” assured Wettimuny.

But CSN’s Director of Sports Gihan Samaranayake revealed that there’s more to Wettimuny’s description of events.

“It is a lie to say that they asked for a bank guarantee on 27th. That day, they only asked us if we could provide a bank guarantee for a hundred percent of our bid. Then after consulting our bank, we informed them we can.

Then on Sunday evening, they suddenly informed us that they needed a specimen of the bank guarantee on the following day. When we asked the bank, bank asked us to get a document called letter of intent from SLC in order to issue a bank guarantee. But SLC completely ignored it” said Samaranayake.

Asked about this, Wettimuny said they were not obliged to issue letters like that.

“I can’t comment on that at the moment. We don’t need to ask them for anything. We asked them for a bank guarantee, unconditional bank guarantee. It didn’t come” said Wettimuny.

“As they did not issue the letter of intent, we told them that we would get the required specimen of the guarantee on Wednseday as Tuesday was poya day and we gave them the specimen issued by the bank on Wednesday” said Samaranayake.

Interestingly, the specimen CSN had been issued by Bank of Ceylon, SLC’s main banking partner who is recently reported to have issued a further overdraft of Rs. 450 million to the cash strapped institution.

CSN sources said that the company management would discuss the issue on an urgent basis and said that there was a possibility of seeking legal redress against SLC who would face the possibility of spending a few more million Rupees in legal fees not to mention the damages they would have to pay in case CSN winning the case.

Samaranayake also added that the word “unconditional” had specifically been mentioned in the specimen they provided while a top bank official from Bank of Ceylon told “Daily Mirror” that the word could mean little as bank guarantees are always unconditional. (Channaka de Silva)

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SLC knocks out highest bidder for local TV deal

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