Udomsak submitted his resignation letter to the company last Friday and his resignation will take effect on February 1. Kongkiat said Udomsak wanted to resign to operate his own personal business.

Kongkiat said Udomsak's resignation would not affect the company's business since its investment-banking team was still strong and no staff resigned to follow suit after Udomsak.

There is no need to find anyone to replace Udomsak as the team is still able to operate well, Kongkiat said.

Kongkiat also insisted that he would not resign from Asia Plus Securities along with Udomsak, who is reportedly his close friend. The CEO said he currently held a 2.85-per-cent stake in Asia Plus Securities.

Kongkiat dismissed an earlier report that Udomsak resigned because foreign major shareholders did not approve the company to issue an Employee Stock Option (ESOP) as they did not want to see a dilution of the company's shares.

"In fact, we wanted to issue an ESOP, but our two major shareholders disagreed," Kongsiat said. "If our earnings come out positive, there would be good returns in terms of salary or bonus. Thus, the decision not to issue an ESOP would not affect our staff," Kongkiat said.

He said his company would like to maintain its market share ranking at second for 2007. However, the company would diversify income sources after brokerage-fee income had dropped overall. He admitted that the market share ranking was difficult to control as it depended largely on foreign investors.

Its market share as of January 12 was 4.76 per cent.

Siriporn Chanjindamanee

The Nation