The company said in a filing with the Stock Exchange of Thailand that it is unlikely to be able to sell the 245.86 million shares in BMCL through the upcoming IPO as planned, because the company's shareholders had decided to sell the shares for no less than Bt1.52, while the IPO price tends to be less than that.

"In addition, according to normal practice, arranging for the company to hold a shareholders' meeting to approve the sale of the 245.86 million shares at the IPO price would take approximately one month, which would be later than the IPO subscription period of BMCL," the company said.

The company then decided to negotiate with Mahasiri Siam, the subway operator's existing shareholder and Ch Karnchang's major shareholder, to buy the shares at the IPO price after the subscription period, the company explained.

However, the sale is subject to approval from Natural Park's shareholders whose extraordinary meeting will be held on September 19.

Natural Park did not mention how much the stake of Mahasiri Siam in BMCL will be raised following the purchase, but the company's shareholding will be reduced to 820.26 million shares.

Earlier, the embattled firm sold 725 million shares in BMCL to Ch Karnchang and Bangkok Expressway Plc (BECL) at Bt1.52 each to repay its massive debts. It bought BMCL's 1.79 billion shares at a price of Bt1.50 each.

Natural Park's net loss in the second quarter widened from Bt197.01 million in the corresponding period last year, to Bt210.18 million.

Meanwhile, BMCL's managing director Sombat Kitjalaksana said the company is discussing with Ch Karnchang the idea of offering a portion of its shareholding in BMCL to the public to replace Natural Park.

"I know that Natural Park wants to sell BMCL's shares, but it cannot ask for shareholders' approval ahead of the subscription period," he said.

BMCL is to launched the IPO and debut its stock next month.

The company plans to allocate 2.75 billion shares, of which 1.44 billion are existing shares and the remainder are newly issued shares, through the IPO.

Of the total existing shares to be sold through the public offering, 270 million are held by Ch Karnchang, 470 million by Mahasiri Siam, and the remainder by Natural Park, Siam City Bank, Krung Thai Bank, and TMB Bank, according to BMCL's original plan.

BMCL next week will organise a road show in Singapore and Hong Kong.

The company has no plan to issue a greenshoe option - selling shares borrowed from major shareholders through an IPO and buying them back to prop up the share price - as it is confident the company's IPO shares would receive a warm welcome from both local and foreign investors.

"BMCL positions itself as growth stock and foreign investors understand the company's business nature as it is involved in infrastructure projects. The company forecasts that it will not be able to pay a dividend for the next five years because we have accumulated losses of Bt3 billion," he said.

Siriporn Chanjindamanee

The Nation