True Corp TRUE.BK, Thailand's only fully integrated telecoms company, said on Monday it was pondering ways to buy back shares in its True Move mobile telephone subsidiary from major shareholder Charoen Pokphand.
It was considering three options, a 20-billion baht ($619 million) bond issue, a 4-billion baht convertible bond issues and a rights offering, the company said in a announcement.
A rights offering would be the last option it would chose, the statement said.
The firm would expend to 3.54 billion baht to buy back 6 billion shares in Bangkok Inter Teletech PCL (BITCO), which owns 100 per cent of True Move, at 0.53 and 0.59 baht each according the period of the share buyback, it said.
The buyback would increase True's holding in True Move, Thailand's third largest mobile firm, to 98.6 percent, it said. True Move, the key earnings driver for True Corp, contributes nearly half of the firm's revenues.
Charoen Pokphand bought the 6 billion BITCO shares in December at 0.50 baht per share, diluting True's holding in True Move to 75.26 percent from 98.17 percent and raising CP's to 23.92 percent from 0.76 percent.
True Corp's board had accepted the issue of 1.4 billion new shares to increase its registered capital to 60 billion baht, of which 630 million shares would be reserved for bond conversions, if that option were chosen, the statement said.
Another 700 million shares could be offered in a rights issue with a minimum offer price of 5.20 baht each and 29.94 million shares could be offered to the International Finance Corp, which gave a partial guarantee to the firm's debt, it said.
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