Briefs

Thai Airways International's new carrier, THAI Smile Air, is to commence flights next July, initially to replace the main brand on the routes to Ubon Ratchathani, Udon Thani, Khon Kaen, Chiang Rai and Surat Thani.

Woranate Laprabang, managing director of THAI Smile Air, portrays the light-premium sub-brand as a competitive hybrid between premium THAI flights and low-cost airlines such as AirAsia.

The target is young business travellers, local travellers and government agencies. Passengers will be free to select seats and can accrue frequent-flyer mileage on both THAI and the Star Alliance network.

Glow Group bonds

Glow Group has raised Bt5.555 billion through a 10-year bond issue, mainly to refinance the project-finance loans of Thai National Power (TNP), which it acquired in July.

TNP has 143 megawatts of capacity in operation and 110MW under construction, with scheduled commercial operation at the end of 2012.

The bonds were issued on August 31 with a coupon rate of 5 per cent per annum.

"As part of our plan to enhance the return on TNP acquisition, refinancing is the biggest synergy element," said Suthiwong Kongsiri, chief financial officer of Glow Group.

 The group initially planned to raise Bt3 billion to prepay TNP's outstanding project-finance loans, and to raise another Bt3 billion next year to complete TNP's expansion, the TNP2 project. "Nevertheless, with overwhelming demand from investors, we successfully placed Bt5.555 billion in total. The amount issued already covers most of the TNP2 project-

funding requirement," Suthiwong said.

Mortgages rise 3.7%

The country's outstanding housing loans as of June 30 stood at Bt1.96 trillion, about 3.7 per cent higher than at the end of last year, Kasikornbank said yesterday. Of the total, 58.4 per cent were lent by commercial banks and 41.6 per cent by state-owned banks.

KBank's outstanding housing loans stood at Bt182.98 billion, up 9.7 per cent from the end of last year. Its market share was 9.33 per cent, against 8.81 per cent at the end of 2010.

Gem of an offer

Jubilee Enterprise has teamed up with Citibank, allowing the bank's credit-card holders to purchase its products with 24-month zero-interest instalments.

More than 2,000 new clients are expected via the campaign, which ends on September 30.

Anyarat Pornprakit, CEO of the diamond company, said the campaign had been launched as more consumers were now paying for their purchases through credit cards. More than 90

per cent of Jubilee clients pay this way.

 Jubilee has more than 100,000 customers and new clients should help the firm achieve its 20-per-cent revenue-growth target to Bt850 million, Anyarat said.