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).

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Equity Bottom-Up

<p>Thai labor cost is now the highest in the region after Singapore and Malaysia, so we are bearish on Thai industrial estates. Japanese manufacturer will diversify outside Thailand, one of their largest foreign production base, into Vietnam, Indonesia, and other ASEAN countries. In our view, growth outlook is more important than valuations in a sunset industry, so we prefer to look at Amata VN and AKR Corporindo of Indonesia. Many of the Thai IE developers also have their own problems outside the core business.</p><p>We also examine network contractors given the torrid construction of 4G networks. While we like their growth, we are rather worried about their high valuations. Value investors can look to AIT and MFEC, which are more attractively valued and have very high yields, even if AIT has scaled back on some of its prior ambitions in Myanmar. For those who hold SAMART, we strongly urge you to sell the stock, because it trades at a big premium to its NAV. In addition, there is risk that the stock will not recover unless a Thaksinite candidate wins the elections in late 2017.</p>

Thai labor cost is now the highest in the region after Singapore and Malaysia, so we are bearish on Thai industrial estates. Japanese manufacturer will diversify outside Thailand, one of their largest foreign production base, into Vietnam, Indonesia, and other ASEAN countries. In our view, growth outlook is more important than valuations in a sunset industry, so we prefer to look at Amata VN and AKR Corporindo of Indonesia. Many of the Thai IE developers also have their own problems outside the core business.We also examine network contractors given the torrid construction of 4G networks. While we like their growth, we are rather worried about their high valuations. Value investors can look to AIT and MFEC, which are more attractively valued and have very high yields, even if AIT has scaled back on some of its prior ambitions in Myanmar. For those who hold SAMART, we strongly urge you to sell the stock, because it trades at a big premium to its NAV. In addition, there is risk that the stock will not recover unless a Thaksinite candidate wins the elections in late 2017.

Twilight of Thai Investment: Industrial Estates and Network Contractors

Amata Corp Public

Twilight of Thai Investment: Industrial Estates and Network Contractors