SEC pushes for big individual stakes in bonds

SEC secretary-general Vorapol Socatiyanurak said the commission planned to announce new accreditation regulations allowing individuals to invest in complicated and risky assets early in the new year. Currently, only institutional investors are allowed to get involved in high-yield bond investment. The move will bring Thailand in line with more-complex global capital markets, Vorapol said.
“Thai capital markets currently feature stocks and fixed-income instruments. The latter are purchased mostly by institutional investors who are only interested in large listed companies. So small and medium-sized companies miss opportunities to raise funds in the bond market,” Vorapol said. “If individual investors are allowed to make fixed-income investments, such as in high-yield bonds, that could add more liquidity to the market and increase opportunities for companies and investors.”
Investors in this kind of instrument should have a sound knowledge of the risks in capital markets; these could be big-time individual investors spending large amounts of more than Bt2 million for a two-year investment period, for example, he said. Such information would need to be examined by brokerage firms, he added.
Vorapol said commercial banks, securities companies and asset-management companies were interested in establishing infrastructure funds. Most were keen on the alternative-energy, telecommunications, industrial-water and drinking-water |sectors.
One or two alternative-energy infrastructure funds are expected to be set up early this month.