Jay Mart's 75 million shares will fund expansion and debt repayment

The company has yet to finalise the share value, but the par value is Bt1. It is due to trade shares on September 16 after the subscription period from September 8-9.

The public will be offered 60 million shares, with 7.5 million for directors and employees and the rest for the company's supporters. Asia Plus Securities is its financial adviser and lead underwriter.

Currently, the groups of chief executive Adisak Sukhumvitaya and his wife Yuwadee jointly own 93.9 per cent of Jay Mart. After the IPO, their share ownership will be diluted to 70.9 per cent, while that of the public will be 20 per cent. Jay Mart now has registered capital of Bt300 million, of which Bt225 million is paid up.

The new funds will be its cash flow and pay part of a short-term debt of Bt800 million.

Adisak said the company would keep growing business through selling devices with high net-profit margins, instead of boosting sales volumes of low-cost products.

Telecom industrialists said the market for low-cost handsets had grown significantly, with consumers opting for cheap phones as the economy slowed.

But Adisak insists that the company is not affected by the economic decline, due to its focus on consumers with high purchasing power who do not feel the pinch of the sluggish economy.

Jay Mart also has effective cost management and related businesses, including retail-space management and debt collection, which have enhanced the phone-sales business.

It has more than 200 shops nationwide and aims to increase that number to 280 within three years.

In the first half, Jay Mart posted revenue of Bt2.825 billion, of which more than 95 per cent was contributed by handset sales, 2 per cent by its debt-collection firm JMT Network Service and 2.3 per cent by retail-space management. Its net profit in the first half was Bt57 million, up 27 per cent from the same period last year.

Chief financial officer Pracha Tansaenee said the company was targeting handset sales of about 800,000 this year, with 380,000 already sold.

There are more than 50 million mobile-phone users in Thailand out of a population of 64 million. Industrialists forecast handset sales of 7 million to 8 million this year.