The transaction made the family Agro Industrial's largest shareholder, while Far East Assets no longer has any stake in the company.

A source at Far East Assets said the transfer was in line with shareholders' restructuring of the group.

Meanwhile, at Agro Industrial, an unnamed director speculated that the share transfer resulted from the abolition of the listing plan for Far East Assets.

"At first, we allocated shares to Far East Assets because we thought the company had potential, and it had plans to list on the stock market. We thought the company would hold our stock for a long time, but we didn't know whether its investment purposes would change," said the source.

Agro Industrial's executives met with the Stock Exchange of Thailand yesterday to ask for a resumption of trading in the company's stock after it was suspended while the company was rehabilitating its business.

The shares were priced at Bt1.30 before being suspended.

Agro Industrial recently sold capital-increase shares to a number of new investors at Bt1 apiece.

Interestingly, Suthisak Lohcharoen, a director of EMC Plc, holds a 10-per-cent stake in Agro Industrial and Chamni Janchai, a director of Thai Heat Exchange Plc, owns 3 per cent. Both of them are on Agro Industrial's board of directors.

Both EMC and Thai Heat Exchange appear to be popular stocks with retail speculators. The Nation