Eastern Merchants PLC Group

Eastern Merchants PLC was founded in 1945 through the endeavors of two brothers, Sumane and Winton Karunaratne, with an initial working capital of USD50 accompanied by an incredible will to succeed. Their primary export was cinnamon bark oil, a commodity that was traditionally traded by their father and grandfather. From its humble beginnings, Eastern Merchants has now developed into a major commodity trading house. The aspirations and ambitions of the founders have been realized through the Company’s growing success, and in 1981, Eastern Merchants became a Public Quoted Company trading on the Colombo Stock Exchange. Though the main export of the Company today is natural rubber, we are also involved in the export of Sri Lankan fresh produce, coconut fibre, desiccated coconut and spices out of Sri Lanka. Over the last decade, the company has expanded its trading functions in natural rubber and coconut products to include a multitude of supply chains based in Africa, Asia and South & Central America. As one of the major commodity exporters in Sri Lanka, Eastern Merchants caters to a broad international market spanning the Americas, Europe, Africa and Asia. Presently, Eastern Merchants operates from its own premises in a prime location of Colombo, with the Company’s warehouse complex located within an industrial estate in the Colombo suburb of Sapugaskanda. This warehouse complex was opened in 1997 and currently contains 75,000 sq.ft of storage space and purpose-built facilities for its operations. In 2017, the company diversified its portfolio by entering the value added rubber products space via the acquisition of Microcells Pvt Ltd. Microcells is a high quality rubber sheeting and flooring manufacturer approved and certified by the Board of Investment of Sri Lanka. In what is a new era in the development of Eastern Merchants, the grandsons of the Karunaratne brothers have now joined the Company to continue the legacy left by their grandfathers.