Bangkok Commercial Asset Management Plc (BAM), the country's largest bad-asset management company, expects to reach its 2018 bad-loan acquisition target of 16.4 billion baht after purchases surpassed the eight-month target.
BAM, which is fully owned by the Bank of Thailand's Financial Institutions Development Fund (FIDF), acquired non-performing loans (NPLs) and non-performing assets (NPAs) worth a combined 8.38 billion baht for the eight months through August, outpacing the target of 8.32 billion, said president Somporn Moonsrikaew.
As of July, BAM had bought NPLs worth 669 billion baht, constituting 189,078 bad debtors, since its inception. It had reached agreements with 87,458 debtors to restructure their debts, worth 442 billion. For NPAs, BAM manages 17,069 items worth 45.3 billion baht.
The company aims for net profit of 4.2 billion baht this year, lower than the 4.5 billion baht of the previous year, largely due to the intense competition in bad-asset sales and larger supply, Mr Somporn said, adding that a higher number of small companies participated in buying bad assets from banks but the company will only purchase bad assets at appropriate prices.
BAM also set a target of 8% growth in sales this year to 16.4 billion baht.
Mr Somporn said local financial institutions are offloading more NPLs and NPAs in a bid to keep their bad loans at low levels after many banks already adopted the International Financial Reporting Standard 9 (IFRS 9), even though the implementation deadline has been put off for another year to 2020.
Some banks sold many bad assets to avoid larger NPLs after implementing the new accounting report standards, he said.
Regarding BAM's plan to list on the Stock Exchange of Thailand, Mr Somporn said the company is using a financial adviser to work out details and the process has made great strides.
He could not say, however, when the company will file the IPO with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
BAM has put off its listing plan for several years because of snags in accounting compliance.
"BAM stands ready to go public, but a change in accounting criteria, which requires BAM to rearrange financial statements dating back several years, is delaying the company's listing plan," Mr Somporn said. "However, we are moving towards listing on the bourse. Furthermore, appropriate timing is needed to get a reasonable price."
The company is not in a rush to go public, he said, as it has excessive liquidity of over 10 billion baht, which is adequate for NPL and NPA purchases.
BAM's debt-to-equity ratio is below 2.
