Temasek welcomes Thai assurance on Shin Corp

The Straits Times, April 2, 2007


BANGKOK - TEMASEK Holdings yesterday welcomed the assurance given by Thailand that it is unlikely to take back Shin Corp from the Singapore state investment company.

Thai Finance Minister Chalongphob Sussangkarn had said that Thailand should not and likely will not take back the telecommunications giant from Temasek.

'We should not take Shin back or seize its assets. It will send a wrong message to foreign investors,' Mr Chalongphob was quoted as saying last Friday in an interview with Dow Jones Newswires.

Mr Goh Yong Siang, country head of Temasek Holdings in Thailand, said in a statement yesterday: 'We welcome the assurance of the Finance Minister Chalongphob. The statement he made on Friday signals a very positive development. We would like to assure the minister that we respect the feelings of the Thai people and their government.'

In January last year, a consortium led by Temasek bought a controlling stake in Shin Corp for US$1.9 billion (S$3 billion) from the family of then-prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, a move that helped precipitate a coup as well as his ouster last September.

Mr Thaksin's critics claimed the sale endangered national security because it placed strategic assets, including Thailand's only communications satellites, in the hands of foreigners.

National sentiment against Shin's sale to Temasek was fanned by the military after it staged the coup.

'The two sides must find a middle ground,' Mr Chalongphob was quoted as saying. 'Temasek understanding the feelings of the Thai people, and we not pushing the case to extremes.'

Meanwhile, coup leader and chairman of the Council for National Security Sonthi Boonyaratglin said on Saturday that he was studying relevant issues pertinent to a signature campaign launched by anti-coup protesters to remove General Prem Tinsulanonda from his post as president of the Privy Council.