New round of fund-raising on SETseen
A new cycle of fund mobilisation is coming around after the funds raised over the past three years were used up for expansion.
“Thailand’s stock market is still attractive to several investors because of the strong fundamentals with listed companies’ solid growth. Many companies are likely to raise funds via the stock market in a bid to keep their debt-to-equity ratio below 1 time,” Pakhawat Kovithvathanaphong, chief executive officer of Trinity Securities Group, said yesterday.
The new trend will focus on more stock-trading accounts and sales representatives, he said.
In the first half of this year, six companies have already raised Bt26.56 billion by going public, compared with Bt26.7 billion in all of 2011, Bt52.46 billion in 2010 and Bt30.26 billion in 2009.
However, from 2003-08, companies mobilised an average of Bt100 billion a year via initial public offerings (IPOs). In 2004, the Stock Exchange of Thailand marked the most funds raised at Bt233.19 billion.
Many firms have been very cautious about the impact of the euro debt crisis.
The Thai Listed Companies Association aims to increase stock-trading accounts to 1 million from 400,000 currently, Pakhawat said as a director of the association. Sales and marketing positions would be added in response to growth in stock-trading accounts.
The association along with the SET will arrange training courses for top executives of listed small and medium-sized enterprises in human-resource management, good governance and risk management, he said.
Paiboon Nalinthrangkurn, CEO of Tisco Securities, said that during a portfolio investment roadshow in New York last week, many foreign investors expressed interest in the Thai bourse, given the weighting of 3-5 per cent, which is higher than the MSCI Asia index of 2-3 per cent.
“The Thai stock market is believed to be the first priority among Asian stock markets in foreign investors’ eyes,” he said. In the year to date, Thai listed firms have yielded 22 per cent in return on investment, ranking as the top performer in the region.
The sectors that the investors were most interested in were consumer and infrastructure, which are expected to be promoted by the government’s policies, Paiboon said.
