Thailand’s SET Index closed at 1,393.70 points, decreased 4.44 points or 0.32% with a trading value of 55.73 billion baht. The analyst stated that the Thai stock market traded sideways, which conformed to the global markets. Investors were awaiting economic data from the US, such as GDP and PCE figures, to assess inflation in the country. The Thai stock market still lacks positive factors, as investors prepared for the announcement of economic stimulus measures from the Thai government.
The analyst expected the market to continue trading sideways tomorrow.
SCB X Public Company Limited (SET: SCB) is expecting to ink the deal to acquire Home Credit’s business in Vietnam, according to the report by Bloomberg.
Citing people familiar with the matter, Bloomberg reported that one of the biggest commercial banks in Thailand, SCB, has emerged as a favourite buyer of Home Credit’s business in Vietnam due to its offer that outbidded other rivals, including Thailand’s Kasikornbank Public Company Limited (SET: KBANK) and KB Kookmin Bank, a unit of South Korea’s KB Financial Group Inc.
The deal is valued at $800-900 million, which is higher than the previous assessment of $700 million in asset valuation in the report last year.
The divestment in Vietnam business is a part of its strategy to improve business operations as its owner PPF Group NV is shifting its focus back to Europe. The company has been reviewing its business in Asia after it backed off from a $1.5 billion IPO in Hong Kong.
Concert economics has sparked Singapore to consider it as the country’s new growth driver with expectations for consumer spending of more than hundreds of millions dollars.
Yun Liu, an ASEAN economist from HSBC stated that even though Singapore was traditionally more attractive for business travel, large-scale global music events has given the country positive sentiments for travel-related services that can add up to 10% of its GDP.
The Coldplay’s Music of the Spheres World Tour, which was performed at Singapore National Stadium in January, left an impression by selling out 200,000 tickets within hours, while also stimulating an enormous amount of search traffic for accommodations in the country through Agoda.
Moreover, this coming weekend, Singapore will host Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, which caused demand for flights to the country and hotel bookings to jump. The tour was expected to generate about 350 million to 500 million Singaporean dollars ($260.3 million to $371.9 million).
