THAILAND

The Securities and Exchange Commission is looking into the share price movements of some listed telecom companies for evidence of speculation ahead of this month's 3G wireless broadband licence auction.

The prices of the companies in question rose in a range of 17% to 60% in August but fell sharply yesterday after some of them failed to submit bid documents by Monday's deadline, said an SEC official who declined to be named.

Eighteen companies picked up bidding documents from the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) from Aug 1-29 but only three submitted formal bids on Monday.

As expected, they were the three mobile market leaders: Advanced Info Service, DTAC and True Move. Each submitted bid documents, a letter of intent, a 500,000-baht processing fee, and a deposit of 1.28 billion baht.

Also submitting bid documents was an NGV equipment importer and assembler, Win Win NGV, owned by the children of a senator who strongly opposed the 3G auction, claiming the starting price was too low. However, it failed to produced the fee, letter of intent and cheque deposit and was disqualified.

Other listed telecom businesses including Samart I Mobile, Loxley and Jasmine International did not submit bid documents. Some notified the SET that they saw the 3G business as high-risk.

The SEC executive said Loxley was summoned to clarify its participation in the bid. (continued...)

Industry and market executives conceded that investor speculation about which telecom companies might bid was probably inevitable ahead of Monday's deadline.

Suranand Wongwittayakamjorn, an NTC commissioner, admitted it would be very difficult to prevent share speculation as the 3G auction was an open-bid platform.

Over the past month, the share price of Jasmine International surged by 64%, Loxley shares rose 40% and Samart I-Mobile increased by 17%.

Loxley shares fell 11% yesterday at the end of a volatile month, during which their price ranged from 2.08 to 3.04 baht, the peak reached on Monday.

Jasmine shares (JAS) lost 7% to 1.33 baht, also in heavy trade worth 558.1 million baht.

Shares of the three mobile leaders all fell yesterday as investors weighed the chances of each one in the Sept 20 auction, when only two licences will be available. A third licence would be auctioned later.

True Corp shares fell 9.6% to 6.60 baht in heavy trade worth 981 million, AIS shares (ADVANC) fell 0.75 baht to 92.25, while DTAC was off 2.25 baht to 46.50 in heavy trade worth 1.24 billion baht.

Suroj Lamsam, executive vice-president of Loxley, said his company had been genuinely interested in seeking a 3G licence, and there had been no intention of share speculation.

He said Loxley had been unable to conclude talks with a prospective partner, an Asian-based telecom firm, because of concern about an NTC rule that would curb "foreign dominance" in the business.

As well, he said, the company considered the deposit of 1.28 billion baht - 10% of the starting bid price - too high because the NTC could not guarantee that it would return the money if the 3G auction drags on.

The timeframe for submitting bid applications was also very short given the project value. "All these factors made Loxley fail to meet the NTC deadline," he said.

However, Mr Suroj said Loxley was still in talks with prospective partners for a joint venture to bid for a 3G licence in the second round if the outlook was good.

Samart I-Mobile, meanwhile, said it decided not to bid and to focus instead on strengthening its existing 3G mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) service for TOT Plc.

Jasmine International and its subsidiary Acumen declined to elaborate on why they did not bid.