Asean-focused. Ex-Head of Thai Research

Athaporn Arayasantiparb, CFA

Athaporn served as Head of Research for UOB and ANZ in Thailand and was an award-winning telecoms analyst at UBS in 2010 (AsiaMoney Thailand category) and Regional Strategist for DMG in Singapore. Prior to that, he also served as Kasikornbank credit analyst and scholar. He has a total work experience of 22 years, of which 19 were in research and 9 in research management roles. He started his career as an engineer for PTT and currently manages family investments. He holds an MBA from Stern (NYU) and CFA Charter since 2006.

Apart from IPO Radar, which focuses on future listings, MCorp Review also performs financial advisory services for TKC Services and provides 11 other on-going thematic series ranked by frequency in descending order, namely:

1) Snippets (news-driven);
2) Sathorn Series (financial services);
3) Silicon Stories (technology); 
4) Thai-Coons (billionaire origin series);
5) Reality Check (data-driven, investigative);
6) Thai Media Spotlight;
7) Political Pit Stop; 
8) Telecom Review; 
9) Thai Macro Watch (read-through from foreign events);  
10) Small Cap Diary; and
11) Property Grid

There are also 3 limited-time series driven by specific events or locations, namely:
1) Thai Corona Crisis;
2) South Series; and
3) Mechanics and Details (deal forensics).

Snippets #32: MINOR Acquires Bonchon, ThaiBev's New Listing

Snippets #31: PTTOR Intro, LTF Replacement

Snippets #30: Singha Buys Santa Fe, DTAC's Downgrade

Asean (Thailand) Focused Independent Research

M Corp Review

M Corp is led by Athaporn Arayasantiparb who served as Head of Research for UOB and ANZ in Thailand and was an award-winning telecoms analyst at UBS in 2010 (AsiaMoney Thailand category) and Regional Strategist for DMG in Singapore. Prior to that, he also served as Kasikornbank credit analyst and scholar. He has a total work experience of 17 years, of which 14 were in research and 4 in research management roles. He started his career as an engineer for PTT and currently manages family investments. He holds an MBA from Stern (NYU) and CFA Charter since 2006. Apart from IPO Radar, which focuses on future listings, MCorp Review also provides six on-going thematic series ranked by frequency in descending order, namely: 1) Silicon Stories (technology) 2) Sathorn Series (financial services) 3) Thai-Coons (billionaire origin stories) 4) Reality Check (data-driven, investigative) 5) Thai Media Spotlight; and 6) Thai Macro Watch (global market drivers).

Equity Bottom-Up

Minor called a shareholder meeting to update on the recent capital management program which included a combination of bond and warrants issuance. We also checked on TAC Consumer, a small cap stock that typically rides on CP All's coattails.<ul>
<li>
MINT's US$300m perpetual bonds was 11x oversubscribed despite offering a modest rate of only 3.1% and including a 3-year call option, largely because it had a guarantee by the similarly rated Bangkok Bank. The company also requested that Banks waive the quarterly covenant test.</li>
<li>
Equity increase. The company is also offering 563m new shares at Bt18.9/sh (give or take 10%) for every 8.2 existing shares and one warrant for every 17 existing shares, which expire in 3 years. These measures should give them more than ample capital to weather the pandemic. So far, operating cash outflow was only Bt1.4m in March and April, so we actually consider this a bit of an over-reaction on management's part.</li>
<li>
TAC Consumer reported 19% earnings growth (to Bt42m) despite a 7% revenue decline. The company was quite positive on H2'20 given the re-opening of the economy, though they did face limitations in signing up new characters for their merchandising and premium business.</li>
</ul>

Minor called a shareholder meeting to update on the recent capital management program which included a combination of bond and warrants issuance. We also checked on TAC Consumer, a small cap stock that typically rides on CP All's coattails.

MINT's US$300m perpetual bonds was 11x oversubscribed despite offering a modest rate of only 3.1% and including a 3-year call option, largely because it had a guarantee by the similarly rated Bangkok Bank. The company also requested that Banks waive the quarterly covenant test.

Equity increase. The company is also offering 563m new shares at Bt18.9/sh (give or take 10%) for every 8.2 existing shares and one warrant for every 17 existing shares, which expire in 3 years. These measures should give them more than ample capital to weather the pandemic. So far, operating cash outflow was only Bt1.4m in March and April, so we actually consider this a bit of an over-reaction on management's part.

TAC Consumer reported 19% earnings growth (to Bt42m) despite a 7% revenue decline. The company was quite positive on H2'20 given the re-opening of the economy, though they did face limitations in signing up new characters for their merchandising and premium business.


MINOR and TAC Consumer Navigate the Pandemic

Minor International

MINOR and TAC Consumer Navigate the Pandemic