Finance Minister Korn Chatikavanij yesterday assured investors the ministry would not launch legal action against current shareholders of the telecom firms related to the Supreme Court ruling in former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra's assets-seizure case.
Korn said current shareholders of the telecom firms were not involved in the wrongdoing committed by Thaksin and therefore would not be held responsible.
"I have asked the State Enterprise Policy Office, the Comptroller-General's Department and the Revenue Department to investigate damages to state agencies or state enterprises.
Current shareholders of firms related to the Supreme Court's ruling are not involved in any past wrongdoing, so they must not be held responsible," Korn told reporters.
What the Finance Ministry intends to do is just to follow through on the court's ruling, he added.
The Cabinet will next week consider relevant ministries' proposals to proceed with the Court's ruling, which could involve revisions in the concessions, mainly to AIS and Thaicom.
Chaiyaporn Nompitakcharoen, executive vice president of the research group at Bualuang Securities, said that until the dust settled investors should avoid the stocks.
Share prices of the Shin Group Of Companies this week continued to nosedive, as investors were concerned over future revisions in the concessions awarded, mainly to Advanced Info Service and Thaicom.
Shin ended the week at Bt21.50, down 8.26 per cent from last week; AIS slumped 12.78 per cent to Bt76.75; and Thaicom plunged 26.61 per cent to Bt4.40. Total Access Communication also suffered from a domino effect, losing 5 per cent to Bt33.
"Any lawsuit against AIS would hit its share price. Meanwhile, though Thaicom is signing a new satellite service deal in India this month, the share price does not reflect the good news as its concession could be nationalised like iTV," Chaiyaporn said.
Siam City Research Institute said that the risk was high that AIS and Thaicom might need to pay compensation to state agencies for any gains from policy changes during the Thaksin era. AIS would be hit hardest if it was ordered to pay compensation and then ordered to adhere to the original revenue-sharing format as specified in the original concession.
It is highly likely that AIS may need to remit 30 per cent of pre-paid revenue to its concession owner, TOT. Yet, SCRI noted that the actual financial impact, if any, would not take place this year, as the court cases will take time. However, nationalisation would not be in the picture, as the government is not capable of doing the business and the nationalisation would widely affect investor and consumer confidence.
In the past week, AIS's market capitalisation was hit by Bt5.18 billion while that of Thaicom plunged by Bt2.46 billion.
