Moong Pattana prepares for MAI listing

       Moong Pattana International, a market leader for maternity and child-care products, will list on the Market for Alternative Investment in early October.
       The company is a distributor of household products under the Japanese Pigeon brand, including cotton buds, sprays and knives. Moong Pattana was founded in January 1981 by Sumeth Lersumitkul,and began trading Pigeon brand products from 1988.
       A total of 30 million new shares with one baht par value will be floated under the offering, with 24 million offered to the general public,2 million to directors,executives and staff and 4 million to company partners. Paid-up capital will increase to 120 million baht.
       Asia Plus Securities is the financial adviser for the offering. Pricing for the IPO will be set later.
       Post-IPO, holdings for the Lersumitkul family will be diluted to 74.69%, with public investors holding 23.33% and employees 1.67%.
       Mr Sumeth, who also is the company's CEO, said funds raised from the offering would be used to finance business expansion and debt repayment.
       Moong Pattana reported first-quarter revenues of 92.4 million baht, up from 87 million in the same period last year.Revenues in 2008 totalled 421.3 million baht, up from 345.2 million the year before. First-quarter net profits rose to 15.2 million baht from 13.7 million a year earlier. Profits in 2008 totalled 53.9 million baht, up from 28.4 million baht during the previous year.
       Mr Sumeth said the company expected to maintain double-digit growth this year.
       The company is also strengthening its sales and marketing teams as well as looking to expand its current sales channels of over 8,000 stores nationwide.
       Kongkiat Opaswongkarn, chief executive officer of Asia Plus Securities, said Moong Pattana International was a leading distributor of consumer products in Thailand, with a nationwide network and decades of experience.
       Dr Kongkiat said new listings this year would be limited to small firms on the secondary MAI, as few large companies are interested in the main board given market and economic uncertainties.
       "We will see a parade of small companies look to list on the exchange until next year. As far as market sentiment,global market will be the main driver going into the end of this year," he said.