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Published on November 30, 2007

The move was part of plans to reduce KBank's NPL-management burden and curb its bad loans to less than 5 per cent this year.

President Prasarn Trairatvorakul previously said KBank intended to lower its NPLs to 5-5.5 per cent this year. However, this sale will cut them to less than 5 per cent.

KBank recently held an auction for some of the NPLs, attrac-

ting 11 institutional participants.

The board of directors approved sale to two bidders offering the best prices and conditions for NPLs with a principal valued

at Bt11.8 billion. For KBank's

NPLs totalling Bt7.6 billion, the winner was Standard Bank Asia, while for those of Phethai Asset Manage-ment, the winner was Morgan Stanley Emerging Markets.

The NPL sale of KBank and Phethai Asset Management is in line with KBank's plans to reduce its bad loans to an appropriate level, in order to brace itself for a possible volatile economic and political situation in the future.

Moreover, the sale will help KBank manage its core business more closely while dropping the ratio of NPLs to total loans from 6.3 percent as of the end of September to less than 5 percent at the end of next month.

The Nation