Kasikornbank Plc (KBANK said yesterday it was still undecided about the possible acquisition of a finance, securities and leasing company, and may wait until the deadline for the submission of the "Financial Masterplan" has passed before making a
Kasikornbank plans to increase its lending activities to small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) by participating in various government support programmes.
The Export-Import Bank of Thailand has announced that its first-quarter 2004 profits amounted to 141 million baht (US$3.5m), an increase of 73% from 81.4 million baht (US$2.0m) in the same period last year.
The 22bn baht purchase of an 80 per cent stake in the Bank of Asia by United Overseas Bank (UOB), Singapore’s largest bank, is a sign of UOB’s strong commitment to the Thai market, according to its chairman Wee Cho Yaw.
A group of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) has formed an alliance to pool resources and share strengths in order to improve their business competitiveness.
The factoring industry is neither registered nor regulated in Thailand. Nevertheless, the industry has been flourishing for at least a decade.
As a whole, SMEs have limited assets and inadequate collateral; their financial accounting is poor; they are often family-run, and lack professional management discipline. Important to lenders, their historical rates of default are high.
Siam General Factoring Plc's purchase of Global Thai Finance will bring financial expertise to the former and a backdoor listing to the latter.
Many local businesses and institutions are not in a position to benefit from intellectual property (IP) because of their lack of knowledge of the regulations, a copyright lawyer said this week.
Siam City Bank has sold a 48.16 per cent stake (8,668,800 shares) held in Siam City Factoring at 0.35 bt per share, totalling 3m bt, to Trongjai Darbavasu on 20 February.
Source: Bangkok Post
