SEC not worried about impact of B/E defaults
The securities watchdog has said it is not worried about defaults involving millions of baht worth of bills of exchange, saying the exposure is very low compared to the total bond market. The Securities and Exchange Commission, however, has taken prompt action to mitigate nervousness in the private bond market. The agency’s move was in response to Deputy Prime Minister Somkid Jatusripitak’s instruction to monitor the situation closely. “Lately, the defaults accounted for Bt508 million [as some Bt500 million had already been honoured or rolled over], or only 0.47 per cent of the Bt107 billion total funds of accredited investors,” said Rapee Sucharitakul, secretary-general of the SEC. The past few weeks have seen defaults of more than Bt1 billion worth of B/E issued by several listed companies, raising fears that it might cause a domino effect in the financial market, as some of them have fallen in the hands of asset management firms.
