Interest in buying back satellite business leads to heavy trading volume; Pheu Thai accuses two politicians of making Bt300m profit from stock manipulation
Thaicom's share price jumped sharply yesterday on the news that the Thai government was planning to buy back the satellite business, prompting charges from the opposition Pheu Thai Party that it might have been a target of stock-market manipulation.
Thaicom, a subsidiary of Shin Corp, closed at Bt7.20 apiece yesterday amid heavy volume of Bt1.34 billion, rising from Bt5.45 last Friday. The trading volume of Thaicom was also heavy at Bt826 million on Monday when the news of the buyback broke. Normally, the trading volume of Thaicom has been below Bt100 million.
Pheu Thai spokesman Phromphong Nopharit said two politicians with the initials K and S had made profits of Bt300 million from the stock price manipulation of Thaicom.
Prakiat Nasimma, a party-list member of Pheu Thai, also said the government had floated the buyback news of Thaicom in order to benefit from stock-market manipulation.
"We'll hold a meeting tomorrow at our party to discuss this issue. Playing up this news may be part of a secret plan to manipulate the stock price, because the government should not buy back the company, since it's a satellite business, not satellite communications," he said.
Finance Minister Korn Chatikavanij yesterday took part in a Twitter session with the editors of The Nation. Pheu Thai had targeted him as one of the ministers to be grilled in the no-confidence parliamentary debate. But the debate ended without any censure against Korn.
Asked how he would respond to the opposition's charges of stock market manipulation, Korn replied: "There were many important issues than Thaicom, and still the opposition did not ask any questions. I met with Temasek [major shareholder of Shin Corp] over a month ago without any impact on the stock price - until it became news yesterday - so not guilty.
"If I had wanted to make profit from this, I would have accumulated stock - but this did not happen."
Korn said the Finance Ministry has been asked to look into the Thaicom deal, and so that is what he is doing now. He declined to comment on his talks with Temasek Holdings.
Temasek could not be reached for comment yesterday. Myrna Thomas, head of corporate affairs at Temasek Holdings, did not respond to telephone calls from The Nation.
Sirichoke Sopha, an aide to Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, disclosed the Democrat-led government was interested in buying back Thaicom from Temasek.
The Singaporean entity acquired Shin for Bt76 billion in 2006 from ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra. There were indications at the time it would like to buy only blue-chip mobile-phone operator Advanced Info Service from Shin, but the Shinawatras wanted to sell Shin as a whole.
Abhisit stressed anyone inappropriately benefiting from the stock price of Thaicom would be subject to the legal process.
"Everything must be in accordance with the law. We have the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Stock Exchange of Thailand to look into the matter," he said.
Abhisit admitted the government would like to acquire Thaicom, which is now operating the iPSTAR and Thaicom 5 satellites, from Temasek because the satellite operation had national-security implications.
But he said the matter had not reached a point where the government had decided on buying back Thaicom, and the pricing has not yet been determined.
All of this will have to be in line with regulations and the law, because the government will have to refer to the Supreme Court's ruling on Thaicom and determine the role of the government agencies involved, Abhisit added.