Thailand: Thai Beverage Pcl can get about USD 1billion at IPO in Singapore
Thai Beverage, Thailand’s largest brewery , plans a $1 billion initial share sale in Singapore after anti-alcohol protesters blocked an offering in Thailand last year, three bankers involved in the sale said. Thai Beverage, which is set to begin marketing its IPO to international investors in May, may raise $900 million to $1 billion, the bankers said to Bloomberg on April 2, asking not to be identified because an announcement hasn't been made.
Drawing more foreign share sales is crucial to Singapore's effort to remain a major financial center in Asia as competition increases from Shanghai to Mumbai. Thai Beverage's offering may be the biggest IPO since Singapore Telecommunications Ltd. raised about S$4 billion ($2.5 billion) in 1993 in the city-state's largest initial share sale, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
"For Singapore, it bodes well in its efforts to be a hub for Southeast Asia, offering companies international investors they can tap" said Nicholas Yeo, a fund manager at Aberdeen Asset Management in Singapore, which manages $15 billion in assets.
Financial services make up more than one-tenth of Singapore's $119 billion economy, with its market of 4 million people offering limited share sales from local companies. A total of 213 overseas companies are traded in Singapore, with a combined market capitalization of S$113.5 billion or about a quarter of the value of shares traded on the city-state's exchange. Thai Beverage is choosing Singapore after anti-alcohol and religious groups forced regulators to indefinitely delay its request to list in Thailand. Thai Beverage is the holding company for the alcohol business of Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi, 61, whose $3.2 billion fortune makes him Thailand's richest person, according to Forbes magazine.
Kasemsant Weerakun, Thai Beverage's spokesman in Bangkok, couldn't be immediately reached for comment. The initial public offering may attract investors seeking access to Southeast Asia's second-largest economy, where the biggest IPO to date is a 32.5 billion baht ($836 million) share sale by Thai Oil Pcl in October 2004.
Thai Beverage will join Thailand's Total Access Communication Pcl, the country's second-largest mobile-phone operator, which sold shares on the Singapore exchange instead of Thailand's in October 1995. It will trade alongside alcohol- linked stocks Fraser & Neave Ltd., Singapore's biggest beverage maker, and its unit Asia Pacific Breweries Ltd., which makes Tiger Beer.
Thai Beverage earlier hired JPMorgan Chase & Co., Merrill Lynch & Co., SCB Securities Co., and a unit of Deutsche Bank AG to help sell the shares.
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