Toyota's unit to boost ownership in Thai company

TBAS will buy over 50 percentage of the shares in the company, the other 50 of which was already owned by Toyota Boshoku Corporation, Japan.

The new acquirement of shares will make Toyota the full owner of TASI. The transfer of shares will be conducted on July 31, 2007. The new shareholding structure will result in a change of name of Thai Automotive Seating and Interior Co., Ltd. (TASI) to Toyota Boshoku Gateway (Thailand) Co., Ltd.

 "We see there is lots of potential in this company and the acquiring of TASI will help strengthen the production efficiency and accommodate greater technology transfer among the group companies for better market support within ASEAN," said Bunchob Ongthanasin, Administrative General Manger & Executive Advisor of Toyota Boshoku Asia.

 The current shares were bought over from NHK Spring (Japan) and NHK Spring (Thailand) which had 15 and 35 percentage of shares respectively. The cost of acquiring the shares is Bt 1.2 billion. TASI has a registered capital of  Bt 250 million. TASI will be the largest seats producer for TBAS in Asia after the acquirement.

Vijo Varghese