Promoted by N Mahalingam in 1955 as The Pollachi Credit Society Pvt Ltd, the name was changed to Sakthi Finance (SFL) in 1967. N Mahalingam is the chairman, and M Balasubramaniam is the managing director. SFL is in the business of mobilising deposits, hire-purchase financing and leasing of vehicles, machinery, mortgage financing, renting out safe deposit lockers, etc. In Apr.'93, it came out with a rights issue of 32.1 lac equity shares (premium : Rs 20), aggregating Rs 9.63 cr. The issue was to partly meet the Rs 66 cr required for deployment in hire-purchase and leasing. SFL has drawn out plans to increase deployment further. It will lay more emphasis on truck finance as demand for commercial vehicles is showing an upward trend. SFL is a category-I merchant banker and has received a licence from SEBI in 1994. Hire-purchase is the company's principal line of business. The total deposits with the company as on 31.03.2001 stood at Rs.115.38 crores as against Rs.126..34 crores in the previous year.