Sukhumvit Asset Management Co Ltd (SAM), a non-performing loan (NPL) and bad-asset management company, aims to generate cash from debt collection of 11.6 billion baht this year, with plans to purchase NPLs and non-performing assets (NPAs) to the tune of 16.5 billion baht.
President Niyot Masavisut said the company will expand its portfolio to help commercial banks manage NPLs in the domestic banking system by focusing on small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) and corporate loans and expanding the service coverage of the debt management clinic.
At present, the company's outstanding NPLs under management are worth 335 billion baht, with corporate NPLs making up the lion's share at 66%, followed by SME NPLs at 33% and retail NPLs at 4%.
Newly acquired NPLs worth about 10 billion baht in total from 15 financial institutions in 2018 were mainly SME NPLs at 58%, followed by corporate bad loans at 26% and housing NPLs at 16%.
SAM met its target of 11.4 billion baht worth of cash from debt collection last year.
"We will continue focusing on NPLs from SMEs, while housing NPLs will be focused only on the Greater Bangkok area because of our limited resources," Mr Niyot said.
He said the company has just four branches at present and no plans to expand with new ones, but it will adopt other service channels such as mobile to reach customers.
There are currently 3,700 NPAs with a total outstanding value of 21 billion baht. Of the amount, wholesale NPAs, or those valued above 20 million per asset, make up 5%, while the rest are NPAs worth less than 20 million baht.
Roughly half of the total NPAs are housing assets.
Mr Niyot said NPL acquisition prices could be higher than in the past, resulting in intense competition.
The company plans to manage the cost by helping customers discharge their debts, he said.
"We have a debt management clinic and plan to expand the coverage to non-banks and other partners such as the National Credit Bureau to cut the verification process for faster and higher efficiency," Mr Niyot said.
2018 saw 33,900 people register to participate in the clinic on the condition that qualified participants were required to be debt-free within five years after exiting the programme.
Of the 1,087 qualified individuals, 86.4% are in the process of instalment payments and 1.2% were able to be debt-free. The other 12.4% are default cases.
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