Thai True plans to buy back mobile unit shares

BANGKOK, Feb 25 (Reuters) - True Corp TRUE.BK, Thailand's only fully integrated telecoms firm, said on Monday it was considering ways to buy back shares in its True Move mobile telephone subsidiary from major shareholder Charoen Pokphand.

It was considering three options, a 20-billion baht ($619 million) bond issue, a 4-billion baht convertible bond issues and a rights offering, the company said in a statement.

A rights offering would be the last option it would chose, the statement said.

The firm would spend up to 3.54 billion baht to buy back 6 billion shares in Bangkok Inter Teletech PCL (BITCO), which owns 100 percent of True Move, at 0.53 and 0.59 baht each depending on the period of the share buyback, it said.

The buyback would raise True's holding in True Move, Thailand's third largest mobile firm, to 98.6 percent, it said. True Move, the key earnings driver for True Corp, contributes nearly half of the firm's revenues.

Charoen Pokphand bought the 6 billion BITCO shares in December at 0.50 baht per share, diluting True's holding in True Move to 75.26 percent from 98.17 percent and raising CP's to 23.92 percent from 0.76 percent.

True Corp's board had approved the issue of 1.4 billion new shares to raise its registered capital to 60 billion baht, of which 630 million shares would be reserved for bond conversions, if that option were chosen, the statement said.

Another 700 million shares could be offered in a rights issue with a minimum offer price of 5.20 baht each and 29.94 million shares could be offered to the International Finance Corp, which gave a partial guarantee to the firm's debt, it said.

Trinity Securities was appointed as independent financial adviser to the plan, which was subject to a shareholder approval at a meeting on April 29, it said.

At 0350 GMT, True Corp shares were up 1.82 percent at 5.60 baht, while the main Thai index .SETI was up 1.12 percent. ($1 = 32.31 Baht) (Reporting by Khettiya Jittapong; Editing by Michael Battye)