CEO Montree Sornpaisarn yesterday said the domestic political and economic environment had changed significantly. Investors are not confident about the political situation or the central bank's measure. He believes a lower market share for Kim Eng is in line with the current situation.

Kim Eng expects its market share of Internet trading will reach 20 per cent this year, from 17.24 per cent last year. With widespread high-speed Internet service, more customers are using Internet trading services, while others use mobile phones, pocket computers and personal digital assistants for stock trading.

With service fees for Internet trading as low as 0.15 per cent, Montree expects more investors to make greater use of this medium.

Montree said his company would expand its customer base this year, both institutional and retail investors. Thus, the proportion of institutional customers is expected to increase to 25 per cent, from 15 per cent previously, while that for individual customers will drop from 80 per cent to 75 per cent.

Montree said the company's investment-banking operations have been quite sluggish, due to the negative sentiment, adding that it needed to be more careful in stock selection, pricing and the timing for initial public offerings (IPOs).

He said his company had prepared three to five property-fund IPOs worth a combined Bt20 billion to Bt30 billion. There are also another one or two companies that will issue shares via IPOs worth Bt2 billion to Bt3 billion per company.

Montree expressed confidence the Thai stock market remained attractive to foreign investors, because the current price-to-earnings ratio is as low as 8, while that for foreign stock markets ratio is 12-18.

Siriporn Chanjindamanee

The Nation