A heavy issuance pipeline is building in Thailand for next month after several borrowers avoided launching deals in holiday-shortened April.

Thailand saw an extra-long weekend in mid-April after the military government granted additional national holidays for the Songkran festival. Another long weekend is looming for the Labour Day holidays from May 1 to May 5, which also marks Coronation Day.

Debt syndicate bankers say they prefer to hold off deals as investors are expected to be away for the long holidays. In addition, issuers are keen to avoid clashing with two large offerings to be launch between the two extra-long weekends.
Of the two, the larger offering is from Thai Airways, which kicked off bookbuilding for its Bt7bn (US$216.3m) multi-tranche bonds today. Pricing is expected to be released only after details have been filed with the regulatory agencies via sole bookrunner and underwriter Bangkok Bank.

The other is Charoen Pokphand Foods, which is likely to open books on its Bt12bn offering of bonds through joint underwriters Bank of Ayudhya, Thanachart Bank and UOB Thai.

The move to defer to next month comes with a silver lining though. Yields on Thai Government bonds have continued to fall this month in a downtrend since the start of the year. This has helped issuers shave off borrowing costs.

For instance, Thai Airways had earlier in the month sounded out its five-year tranche at 4.40%-4.50%, but formal guidance was tightened to 4.30%-4.40%, thanks in part to a 3bp fall in the five-year TGB yield since the beginning of April. Similarly, the guidance range on the 10-year tranche was dropped at the low end to 4.85% from 4.90%.

This prompted even more issuers into the market this month to do preliminary checks, with the aim of launching deals after the Labour Day weekend.

Minor International is waiting in the wings with a Bt9bn issue that Kasikornbank and Siam Commercial Bank will lead. It will sell bonds at tenors of five and 10 years.

Engineering company Toyo Thai Corp is preparing to sell bonds of up to Bt2bn via Asia Plus Securities and UOB Thai. The issue is expected to be of three and five years for which preliminary price talk is at 4.00%-4.25% and 4.40%-4.65%, respectively. The company, with Japan's Toyo Engineering Corporation and Thailand's ITD as joint owners, has a BBB+ rating from Tris.

Also preparing to sell is telecoms company Samart Corporation, which has hired Krung Thai Bank as sole underwriter for a dual-tranche bond offering. This will comprise tranches of three and four years indicated at initial yields of around 4.30% and 4.75%, respectively. The company's main asset is Samart Telecoms, which Tris rates a BBB+.

Pruksa Real Estate is also looking to sell up to Bt3bn of bonds, for which it has hired Kasikornbank as sole underwriter and bookrunner. Tris rates the bonds at A.