CEO is not CEO

The Colombo District Court issued an Interim Injunction against Anura Lokuhetty, the former CEO of luxury resort Serene Pavilions.

The Plaintiff Serene Pavilions instituted litigation in the District Court alleging inter alia that the Defendant Lokuhetty was wrongfully representing himself as the CEO of Serene Pavilions consequent to being terminated from employment in August 2013.

FT22-10-2014

The board of directors and their share holdings are,

Mr. Clive W. Leach CBE - Chairman (former English cricketer) 38% investing Rs. 200 million.
Mr Jit Warnakulasuriya, Deputy Chairman 12.1 %
Mr Sumith Guruge, Managing Director 15%
Mrs Stephanie Leach – Director 5%
Mr Anura Lokuhetty – Director 30%
Mrs Dilani Lokuhetty – Director
Mr Dilith Jayaweera – Director.

As per an explanation by Mr S. Guruge, MD, although Mr. Lokuhetti  got 30% stake he has not invested any money in the company.

Mr. Lokuhetty was granted these shares by Mr. Leach at no monetary consideration, as he had promised to help establish the resort.    අනේ සුද්දො ලංකාවෙ උන් ව විස්වාස නොකරන්

On August 16, 2013, without the consent of the Chairman, Mr. Leach and the other shareholders, Mr. Lokuhetty made attempts to illegally reconstitute the Board by appointing his close associates, cutting out the founding shareholder Mr. Leach.

This meeting was conveniently held in the absence of  the other four directors. The only other director present was  his wife Dr. Dilani Lokuhetty, a pathologist attached to the Colombo Medical Faculty. Since there was no quorum for this board meeting, Mr. Lokuhetty illegally appointed his son Nipuna Lokuhetti in order to create an artificial quorum.

In the meantime, Mr. Lokuhetty had sought the assistance of the local OIC of the Wadduwa Police Station to help secure the property.

Serene Pavilion's management partner is Citrus Leisure. When contacted, corporate leader and a prominent figure in the country’s advertising industry, Dilith Jayaweera said that he had no commercial interest whatsoever in Serene Pavilions, but only got involved in the matter because of his good friend – Sir Leech. “Sir Clive Leach is a well-known former English cricketer and is now the Chairman of Durham County Cricket Club. He is about 80 years old and before he left Sri Lanka disappointed, he told me how he was ill-treated by Lokuhetty,” he said




Earlier Anura Lokuhetti told media that,

Shareholders attempting to declare ownership by way of thuggery, especially in a tourist hotel, is a discouraging event that should never occur in Sri Lanka given government’s high expectations in the sector concerned, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Deputy Chairman at Serene Pavilions Boutique Hotel, and the President of Tourist Hotels Association of Sri Lanka (THASL), Anura Lokuhetty told The Nation .

Lokuhetty said that he had already lodged a complaint with the Superintendent of Police (SP) for Panadura, against the three individuals who bade to take over the hotel in an ‘unlawful manner’.
Two of the hotel’s shareholders, Jit Warnakulasuriya and Sumith Guruge, together with Dilith Jayaweera, who is not a stakeholder, made a forcible entrance and started acting violently, interrupting the operations of the hotel,”  Lokuhetty asserted .

Later, By an interim order, the Commercial High Court of Colombo has restrained three individuals, Nipuna Lokuhetty, Gamini Nettikumara and Wasantha Galagoda from functioning as directors of the Serene Pavilions hotel which is embroiled in an ownership controversy at the moment, informed sources told The Nation.

Then few months later,
Judge Mahinda Samayawardena at the Commercial High Court Colombo ruled that the husband and wife duo Anura Lokuhetty and Menaka Lokuhetty could be not be removed from the Board of Directors of the said hotel and could continue in the same capacity as they are major shareholders.
The petitioners Sumith Guruge and Jit Warnakulasuriya in their application had cited 13 respondents including Mr. and Mrs. Lokuhetty and alleged the couple had fraudulently tried to claim 37.78 per cent of shares held by Clive Leach and his wife Miriam Leach a British National who had invested in the Hotel.




http://www.serenepavilions.com/Board-of-Directors.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clive_Leach
The Nation 22-09-2014
http://www.nation.lk/edition/biz-news/item/20937-ownership-tussle-at-serene-pavilions.html
http://www.nation.lk/edition/news-online/item/20976-serene-pavilions-directors-restrained-by-court.html
http://www.timeslanka.com/2014/01/04/dispute-at-serene-pavilions-hotel-wadduwa/

chinwi wrote:
Mr. Lokuhetty was granted these shares by Mr. Leach at no monetary consideration, as he had promised to help establish the resort.    අනේ සුද්දො ලංකාවෙ උන් ව විස්වාස නොකරන්

:D

Anura Lokuhetty has been given 30% shares holding with out any monitory consideration. Now what does he say on this drama??

Leon wrote:Anura Lokuhetty has been given 30% shares holding with out any monitory consideration. Now what does he say on this drama??

If this claim is wrong he can easily challenge it by providing bank data.