Sri Lankan shares slipped for a third consecutive day and suffered their worst session in nearly two months on Thursday, hit by sharp losses in industrial heavyweight Expolanka Holdings.

The CSE All-Share index closed 2% lower at 8,828.08. The index is still up around 14% so far this month.

Conglomerate Expolanka Holdings slid 4.9%, weighing the most on the index. The stock has lost 8.3% over the last three sessions, but is still up 21% this month.

LOLC Holdings tumbled 4.1% to a one-week low.

An International Monetary Fund team met Sri Lanka’s president on Wednesday for talks on a bailout, including restructuring debt of about $29 billion, amid the nation’s worst financial crisis in over seven decades.

Another round of discussions with the IMF are to be held on Friday, the President’s Office said.

The most severe financial crisis since independence from Britain in 1948 stemmed from the combined impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and economic mismanagement.

Sri Lankan shares fall as telecom, industrials slide

Trading volume slipped to 104.1 million shares from 116 million shares in the previous session.

The equity market turnover was 2.10 billion Sri Lankan rupees ($5.82 million), according to exchange data.

Foreign investors were net buyers in the equity market, purchasing 115.7 million rupees worth of shares, while domestic investors were net sellers, offloading 2.04 billion rupees worth of shares, data showed.