The privatization of BankThai was completed this Monday in the face of a declining stock market, which severely dampened retail demand over the course of the deal's prolonged selling period.
Having consistently been Asia's best performing index of 2002, the SET finally started succumbing to global volatility a couple of weeks ago and has been on a downward trend ever since, though it still remains about 8% up on the year. This meant that while institutional books closed fully covered at the announcement of pricing on September 20, retail books closed 22% undersubscribed as the domestic tranches did not open for subscription until five days later, by which point a significant amount of...
