Sir,
I saw your commentary of Sept 13 about the Thai bond market citing that the quality of disclosure documentaton for bond offerings is generally poor and the regulatory requirements are lax.
As we are directly involved with making the regulations in this area, I would like to clarify that most of the bond offerings that you see are private placements among institutional investors (supposedly). These investors should have sufficient ability to protect themselves and demand for full and fair information. Therefore, in most jurisdictions, including Thailand, these offering are exempted from
disclosure rules.
The issue that you commented as having had better disclosure are Shin Satellite, which was a public offering and had to comply to the full disclosure rules, and Siam Cement which in general has better corporate governance voluntarily. On the rating issue, from now on, all bonds have to be rated (with some exemption for closely held bonds). In addition, we are receiving application for the second credit rating agency. So we expect to see development in this area.
Sincerely,
Waratchya Srimachand, deputy director, corporate finance department, Securities and Exchange Commission, Thailand
Click here to see the article in question.
