Thai Airways considers increasing offer to acquire stake in Nok Air

Thai Airways is considering increasing its offer to acquire Krung Thai Bank's (KTB) 10% stake in Nok Air to gain greater control of the LCC (Bangkok Post, 28-Sep-2010). The carrier offered to purchase 5 million shares held by the bank for THB13 per share. However, the offer is well below KTB's assessment, which is reportedly THB40 per share. Thai is looking to increase its stake in Nok from 39% to 49%. It stated it based the offer on Nok's financial performance, with the carrier only moving into the black in the past year. Thai is yet to receive an official order from KTB on the offer, but the bank stated it plans to set its own price for the shares and make a counterproposal in early Oct-2010.