JFinCoin & JMART

I wanted to give this a few weeks before writing about it to see if there would be anything positive. Unfortunately for them not, the ICO performed poorly and is down some -50% from its initial offering price. The perfect world scenario was that it would pop well on the first day and then JMART’s sub could raise additional funds which would have been equivalent to 1/3 of JMART’s market cap. But this isn’t the case.

Impact for JMART? Well they have enough issues with their existing businesses hence the weak share price, but this hasn’t helped matters.

4 years of happiness?

Source: Nation Multimedia 

• Isn’t everyone feeling safer and happier that Thailand’s military is protecting us well from the horde of armies coming from Malaysia, Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos that  required new weapons, submarines and an increase in budget?
• Here’s a random question – Which well-known head of state has come to Thailand since the military took over?
• As is always the case, the people have high hopes, reality sets in, disappointment ensues, it’s going to be interesting, and hopefully violence-free, seeing how they play this out…

• First, it is allowing digital TV operators to waive payments on their license for three years, starting from yesterday’s payment. However, they will have to pay interest on the amount waived at the BoT’s rate, which is about 1.5% per year.
• Second, the network cost (or multiplexer) will be cut by 50% for two years. The NCPO skipped the clause giving permission for licenses to change hands from the initial license winners. .
• WORK will go ahead and make its license payment but BEC, RS, MCOT and GRAMMY (or their bankers) will breathe a sign of relief and take the deal.
• The real benefit for all is a 50% cut in network costs for the next two years.
• Who benefits the most? Number’s wise its BEC because they have 3 channels, currently pays around THB 270 mn a p.a. so the 50% cut effectively doubles its profitability.

1st Quarter 2018

On the surface of it all, things look ok, 12 out 27 sectors grew YoY and QoQ. But break it down another level, and you’ll see that only some ~147 out of 680 companies grew the net profit and EPS QoQ & YoY. That’s only 21% of the market. Yes several companies are project based, several companies have higher SGA’s in 4Q17. But this isn’t a pretty picture.