Finance to divest some of its stocks
The Finance Ministry will speed up its divestiture plan of listed and non-listed shares, while suggesting that financial advisers look through financial statements before their planned divestitures.
Prasong Poonthanes, director-general of the State Enterprise Policy Office, said that the advising committee has called a meeting to discuss the divestiture plan for listed and non-listed companies in which the ministry holds less than a 50-per-cent stake.
The financial statements of each company will be investigated to set the ministry’s holding direction.
The ministry holds shares of more than 200 listed and non-listed companies, worth tens of billions of baht.
The stocks to be divested will be those of the country’s strategic enterprises with low returns. The committee will look into them in detail.
Regarding its shareholding in TMB Bank, Prasong said the ministry did not need to hold additional shares in the bank and wanted to sell them off, if it can get the right price.
However, there are no negotiations yet with any investors for the TMB stocks.
The bank’s returns are also on the rise because of its improved performance.
“We have had no negotiations with any investor to sell TMB stocks. We only have been informed periodically that TMB’s major shareholder ING plans to sell its stocks in several operations. However, there is no sign or notification to the ministry about its plan to sell its stake in TMB,” Prasong said.
Regarding progress in the change of the Vayupak Fund from a closed-ended to an open-ended fund, he said an adviser was considering the practice in detail for optimal benefits, transparency and risk to both the ministry and unit holders.
This month, it is expected to be finalised. It will then be forwarded to Finance Minister Kittiratt Na-Ranong for further consideration.
“Now, we are considering the practice in detail for optimal benefits to the unit holders, for instance the fund amount for investment, the supervisor or committees,” Prasong said.
The fund size is expected to be Bt300 billion to Bt500 billion with two types of unit holders.
About 30 per cent of the fund investment will be general unit holders and the remaining 70 per cent will be unit holders from the ministry.
