Phatra Securities executive vice president Manpong Senanarong said 56,000 retail investors had subscribed to the oil refiner's IPO.

Rayong Refinery, a wholly owned unit of oil and gas conglomerate PTT Plc, allocated 1.38 billion shares to investors. Of the total, 698 million were earmarked for foreign investors, 479.5 million were allocated for retail investors and the remainder were to be sold to institutional investors.

Applications for shares set aside for retail investors were processed through branches of Bangkok Bank, Krung Thai Bank and TMB Bank on Thursday and yesterday.

The initial price range has been set at between Bt18 and Bt23 per share, which will be randomly allocated via Settrade.com's computer system on May 25.

Phatra Securities is underwriter for the IPO, which is the country's second-largest fund mobilisation after Thai Oil Plc.

Manpong said that applications for the offering were not as heavy as expected because investors only had two days to subscribe.

A source at Bangkok Bank said that investors had expressed a lot of interest in RRC during the subscription period, but there were not as many subscriptions compared to other recent IPOs sold through banks because applicants will be selected randomly.

Mana Kieatphumchai, 38, a business owner, said he had subscribed for 1,000 RRC shares because he was confident in the company's fundamentals.

Somruedi Banchongduang

The Nation