TOT IPO likely to be delayed

The Thai Government is grappling with the critical issue of whether or not to delay the IPO of TOT Corporation Public Company Limited (formerly The Telephone Organization of Thailand), which is perhaps the most anticipated state enterprise privatization scheduled for 2002. The current schedule calls for TOT to launch IPO at the end of October, with the company's road show due to get underway between 30 September and 16 October. Yet another delay in the TOT's IPO schedule would cast a shadow over the viability of the rest of the government's plans for state enterprise IPOs at least for this year, and possibly into 2003.