Thailand-based aCommerce, which provides end-to-end e-commerce management services, has temporarily shelved its planned initial public offering (IPO) on the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET).
The news, first reported by Global Capital Asia, was independently confirmed by DealStreetAsia.
“Given the current volatile market conditions driven by macroeconomic uncertainties, the company is closely monitoring the situation and making assessments on the timing of the IPO,” said a media representative for the company to DealStreetAsia on Wednesday. “Once the markets stabilise, the company will be ready to proceed with the IPO and we will inform the relevant parties accordingly.”
Thailand’s main bourse had given aCommerce the green light to go public on April 27 this year and granted the group six months to list from the approval date, plus an additional six months, meaning the firm has to make its public debut by March 2023.
The SET said in its approval that the company could sell no more than 1.6 billion shares, or roughly 35% of the total issued shares after the IPO. This includes 685.56 million newly-issued shares and existing shares of no more than 914 million.
aCommerce did not disclose its capital raise target or offering price following the SET nod.
The firm’s CEO Paul Srivorakul, who leads the company’s operations in Thailand, had told DealStreetAsia in an interview in 2020 that the group could look at raising $200 million in its IPO.
Founded in 2013, aCommerce has so far raised $118.8 million from backers including global investment firm KKR, Swiss market expansion services provider DKSH, and Indonesian conglomerate Sinar Mas Group.
The company operates in Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Singapore.
In an interview with DealStreetAsia in July, Srivorakul said aCommerce aims for net profitability latest by 2023. The company plans to achieve positive net income within the next 12-15 months, he had said.
Bad time for IPOs
aCommerce’s IPO delay is the second such postponement this week.
Siam Cement Group’s petrochemical subsidiary Siam Cement Group Chemicals (SCGC) announced in a release last Friday that the group is likely to postpone its initial share sale, originally planned for this year, to early 2023.
SCGC, which received approval from the Securities and Exchange Commission of Thailand for its IPO last week, cited China’s pandemic lockdown, economic trends, and concerns about a global recession for the delay. said Thanawong Ariratchakul, chief executive officer of SCGC.
Thailand’s central bank has been taking actions to tame inflation by hiking interest rates much like the US Federal Reserve.
The country’s IPO market has turned sour this year compared to 2021 when firms raised a record $4.2 billion from initial share sales — the highest in the region. In fact, PTT Oil and Retail Business Public Company’s $1.8 billion IPO in February 2021 was the highest in Southeast Asia last year.
One of the most anticipated IPOs this year includes Thailand-based meat producer Betagro which is set to raise at least 17.4 billion baht ($463.38 million) this month. The IPO would be Thailand’s second-largest offering this year after Thai Life Insurance Pcl raised nearly $1 billion in July.