Pico finds better prospects abroad as political scene hits local market

CEO Silchai Kiatpapan yesterday said this was a tough time to approach new clients or propose new projects because of the political trouble. Besides, financial factors like inflation and the high price of oil and agricultural products have forced several private firms to save costs by cutting unnecessary marketing events.

Silchai said the company, a unit of the Singapore-based global event-organising agency, was working towards four projects from international clients, but declined to reveal details or value of the projects.

"Last year, we realised that the event-organising business had not shown good performance and that it would continue this year. So we set a policy to seek opportunities in the overseas market, and the operating results for the first half of this year could prove that we are going in the right direction," Silchai said.

Pico booked revenue of Bt591 million in the first half of its current financial year (ending in April), up 13 per cent from Bt523 million in the same period last year, its net profit was Bt47.77 million, up 113 per cent from Bt22.56 million last year. The company's gross profit margin also increased from 21.90 per cent to 27.66 per cent this year.

Silchai said revenue from overseas projects, particularly building the conference facilities for the twelfth session of the United Nations Conference  on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), held in Ghana in April, was the key factor in boosting both revenue and profit in the first half of this year.

"Our parent company has offices in 27 countries worldwide, but there are no subsidiaries to cover the African continent, so it assigned Pico (Thailand) to cover it," he said.

The revenue contribution from overseas projects was 30 per cent in the first half of this year and Pico aims to increase this over the next five years, said Silchai

He added that the company has backlog of Bt124 million and would book that as revenue in the second half of the year.

Despite the excellent operating results in the first half, Silchai said he could not predict the performance in the remainder of the year due to the political and economic situation.