Ital-Thai mulls bond issue to finance latest projects

"We cannot say how much we need to raise through the debentures. That depends on our cash flow," president Premchai Karnasuta said yesterday.

The company also expects to turn last year's Bt2.65-billion net loss into a net profit this year.

Following a shareholders' meeting, Premchai said already Bt50.7 billion worth of contracts had been signed and that work on them had started.Ital-Thai proposed the lowest price on Bt101.2 billion worth of contracts and expects to clinch them this year.

It is interested in bidding on Bt110.2 billion worth of other jobs.

"We expect to win more than half of the Bt110.2 billion. Those bids are in the application process," he said.

By market, 82 per cent will be domestic projects and the rest elsewhere, including India, Laos, Taiwan and Dubai.

By type, 85 per cent are government or state-enterprise projects and the rest private projects.

More than half of its funding needs will be met by project financing from commercial banks and the rest from internal cash flow.

The company expects this year's revenue to be nearly level with last year's Bt73.69 billion, of which 74.3 per cent came from public projects and rest from private projects.

"We believe we'll record a net profit this year because we've already cut losses from our construction projects in India and some that were made unprofitable by the soaring prices of construction materials last year, especially steel," Premchai said.

The company is now analysing its financial structure to see if it could support new debentures after selling US$150 million (Bt5.28 billion) worth of debentures in 2007.

Its debt-to-equity ratio is now 3.5.

Meanwhile, Ital-Thai subsidiary Asia Pacific Potash will sign a concession for a potash-mining project in Udon Thani with the government next year, Premchai said.