Thailand's Ministry of Finance reduced its shareholding in Thai Airways International (TG, Bangkok Suvarnabhumi) from 47.86% to 27.2% following the completion of a recent debt-to-equity conversion scheme. According to filings lodged with the country's Securities Exchange Commission, the ministry remains the carrier's biggest shareholder.
According to a December 9 filing, Thai allotted 20,989,446,278 shares out of a planned issue of up to 21,677,214,622 shares with a par value of THB2.55 baht (USD0.073) each across a series of mandatory, voluntary, and deferred interest conversion schemes. The participants included financial institutions holding unsecured debt, major shareholders that are not financial institutions that gave the airline loans, and financial creditors that were in line to receive residual proceeds from an earlier aircraft disposal programme.
Bangkok Bank became Thai's second-largest shareholder with a 10.35% stake after participating in the scheme, and Krungthai Bank is now the airline's third-biggest shareholder with 5.73%.
Besides the Ministry of Finance, other state-owned entities hold smaller revised stakes following the scheme's completion. They include the Government Savings Bank, which now holds 447,995,117 shares, or a 1.93% stake.
The state-owned Islamic Bank of Thailand now holds a 1.71% stake, and the Import-Export Bank of Thailand owns 0.72%. The National Telecom Public Company Limited has converted debt into a 0.56% shareholding. The cumulative effect is that the Thai government has retained a 32.1559% stake in the country's national airline.
Alongside a THB44 billion (USD1.3 billion) share rights offering, the scheme concludes the carrier's capital restructuring, with creditors becoming shareholders and billions of dollars of debt getting wiped from Thai's balance sheet.
Thai hopes to complete its capital restructuring imminently, exit the business rehabilitation process early next year, and relist on the Thai Stock Exchange towards mid-2025.
