PTT sees acquisition opportunities in financial crisis

Chodechai Suwanaporn, executive vice president for energy economics and policy, yesterday said this round of financial crisis would be an opportunity for firms with strong financial positions, including PTT, to acquire enterprises in which existing shareholders have financial problems. Businesses targeted for acquisition by PTT are in oil and gas exploration and production, petrochemicals and bioplastics.

"PTT is always looking for opportunities in merger and acquisition [M&A] deals. The financial crisis at the moment makes the deals easier to complete," he said.

He said the global economy at present was bleak. Investors lack confidence in the financial markets in the US and Europe.

The US government does not have the bail-out measures the market expected. At the same time, financial institutions have downgraded their ratings of many companies.

Many European countries - notably Portugal, Greece, Italy and Ireland - are struggling with high public debt problems. The European Central Bank is likely to help not only the governments of the European Union members, but also other financial institutions in the region.

Chodechai did not confirm whether or not PTT would increase the group's investment and M&A budgets for next year. But he said PTT will consider its five-year investment plan (2012-2016) more cautiously due to the current crisis.

PTT's board of directors in the middle of this year cut the investment budget in 2011 by Bt1.8 billion as some projects could not be done as planned. The budget will be added for next year's plan, so 2013's budget will be Bt94 billion compared with the previous amount of Bt75 billion.