Trinity Watthana Plc has given the green light to Krung Thai Bank (KTB)'s plan to hold a higher stake in the company than its current 19.6 per cent.

A joint working team of

Trinity Watthana and the country's largest state-owned bank

is discussing a plan for KTB

to hold a bigger stake in the

company, said Trinity Watthana president Pakhawat Kovithva-thanaphong.

However, the company cannot say at present how high Krung Thai Bank's shareholding in Trinity Watthana will be raised, he said.

"It's the bank's decision, but we believe it will be less than 50 per cent because its president recently said it wanted to hold around 40 per cent in Trinity Watthana," he said.

"There are many options at

the moment, but none of the

company's existing shareholders want to sell their shares, so re-

capitalisation is one possible method."

Trinity Watthana is a hold-

ing firm which owns all of Tri-

nity Securities and Trinity Ad-visory.

Pakhawat said a larger stake

for Krung Thai Bank in Trinity Watthana would increase its

ability to secure more jobs from state enterprises.

The goal of allowing Krung Thai Bank to hold a sizeable stake is to use the bank as the company's product and service distribution channel, he said.

A higher shareholding by Krung Thai Bank in Trinity Watthana would be subject to approval by both the Bank of Thailand and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Pakhawat added that the

company's business plan this year will focus much more on derivatives, private fund management, and debt instruments.

Although derivatives are quite new, they will grow rapidly because they can be used as a tool in mitigating risk amid stock-market fluctuation, he said.

The company has been of-

fering private fund manage-

ment since late last year, and

hundreds of millions of baht worth of assets are under its management.

The company roughly esti-mated that the brokerage busi-ness this year would contribute 80-90 per cent of its income, with the remainder from investment banking, derivatives and elsewhere.

The company has investment portfolios worth Bt1.3 billion to Bt1.4 billion and has to date offered attractive returns.

Siriporn Chanjindamanee

The Nation