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Strategies & Market Trends : Asia Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Thomas Haegin who wrote (4297)	6/9/1998 6:16:00 AM
From: Thomas Haegin	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9980

News: Thailand to sell fifth of national airline Tuesday June 9, 5:59 am Eastern Time By Vithoon Amorn BANGKOK, June 9 (Reuters) - Thailand set the stage for the sale of more than a fifth of its national airline on Tuesday as part of efforts to restructure its economy along lines suggested by the International Monetary Fund. The Thai cabinet agreed in principle to sell 335 million shares in Thai Airways International (THAI.BK), a senior government official said. Supachai Phisitvanich, permanent secretary at Thailand's Finance Ministry, told reporters the sale would be made up of 235 million existing Thai Airways shares now owned by the government and 100 million new shares. At current prices, the sale would add about $300 million to national coffers. The sell-off would reduce the government's stake in the carrier to 71.5 percent from about 93 percent at present, Supachai said. ''Today the cabinet agreed in principle to float 235 million shares owned by the government and now it is in the process of selecting underwriters,'' he said. He added that the timing and price of the sale had yet to be decided but Finance Ministry officials had previously said the government planned to sell shares in the company through a private placement. Under economic reform guidelines agreed with the IMF earlier this year, Thailand proposed to accelerate the privatisation of its national industries, including several strategic national companies. Shares in Thai Airways, Bangchak Petroleum Co (BCP.BK) and Electricity Generating Plc (EGAT.BK) were all slated for sale this year. In 1999, the government has promised to sell several other national bodies, including telecommunications companies. The IMF sponsored a $17.2 billion bail-out fund for Thailand, which has seen its currency and financial markets collapse over the last year. Some $10 billion of the IMF money has already been disbursed. Analysts say several foreign airlines have been eyeing a stake in Thai Airways, including British Airways (quote from Yahoo! UK & Ireland: BAY.L) and U.S. carrier Northwest Airlines (NWAC - news). They said the Thai government had decided to sell off only just over 20 percent of the national carrier because it did not wish to hamper the company's future efforts to raise money. Under existing law, Thai Airways is only able to retain its national status -- giving its debt a sovereign rating -- if the government owns at least 70 percent of the company. Thai Airways shares stood at 38 baht each at 0900 GMT on Tuesday, unchanged from Monday's close. -eom-

To: Thomas Haegin who wrote (4297)	6/9/1998 5:17:00 PM
From: MikeM54321	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9980

*Way Off Topic* Interesting how many networking fans are on this thread. I don't want to drift too far off, but thought I would post this. I have no idea what in the world Cramer is saying? Does anyone else? Who in the heck wrote off the telecom business? Did I miss something? I follow the networkers pretty closely, and I don't remember there being a period when they were trashed? Anyway, FWIW I thought I would post his little rant. By the way, he implied all of us Asia worriers were just blowing a huge opportunity to make money. That's what attracted me to his article in the first place. Someone asked me about Applied Innovation(AINN). I bought some AINN as part of my basket of networking stocks. It was almost two years and six months ago. It's gone up a big fat zero in that time frame. You know the AINN guys speak the right language, but they have trouble with the execution(understatement!). They may get it right sometime, but you get tired of hearing how they are going to partake in the communications revolution, and end up heading downhill three years running. Where it counts, the bottom line. It's been interesting talking about networkers here. On the "proper" threads, the talk gets extremely technical for investors. Those threads almost seem to attract networking professionals who don't really care about investing, but would rather talk shop. >>Cramer Bemoans the Media's Bearish Fixations By James J. Cramer 6/9/98 Let's get specific. Let's take an industry that we all know and love to trade: the telecommunications business. Here is an industry that going into the year everybody had pretty much written off. Ascend had missed a bunch of quarters. Bay was a basket case,with a preannouncement of bad earnings delivered in the fourth quarter on CNBC's "Squawk Box," of all things. And Mark Haines, the host of the show, didn't even have to push the guy! Holy cow, what a downer. Cisco couldn't get out of its own way and Lucent was being shorted heavily because of woes here and abroad. What a bunch of losers. Now where are we? Lucent has doubled off of a string of awesome quarters. Cisco is kicking butt as usual. (It was then, too, but the press and the analysts were too busy worrying about Asia.) Ascend, even without the S&P addition, is on fire, but thanks for the kiss anyway, McGraw-Hill! Ciena, everybody's favorite to miss the quarter, gets a sweet kiss from Tellabs, which itself is doing quite well. Three companies are rumored to be buying Bay and its earnings may be turning around. Heck, even Telco (TELC:Nasdaq) worked. Where am I going with this paean? To show you how when everybody gets really negative about a growth industry (and Barron's trashes the growth prospects, and analysts want to distance themselves from the group because the charts are bad), that it may be, as it was in this case, just one more giant buying opportunity. You could have thrown darts at this group six months ago and made fortunes.<<