Bangkok--26 Jun--SET Yesterday (June 25), The Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET)’s Board of Governors (BoG) gave in principle approval to the demutualization of the SET group, based on a study by the Exchange’s consultants, the Boston Consulting Group. Under this initiative, SET will become a listed company on the Exchange by 2011, by which time it will have achieved its five-year strategic targets, SET Chairman Pakorn Malakul Na Ayudhya said. BoG agrees that demutualization is essential for economic development in Thailand. It will boost satisfaction and add value for customers, such as listed firms, brokerage companies and investors. By maximizing customers’ profits, demutualization will promote effective resource management, cost efficiency and maximize returns from fund-raising in the capital market. Value-adding will enable public firms to expand their business more rapidly, more conveniently and more cheaply, thus promoting employment and national economic growth. Investors will also find that participation in the capital market will be more convenient and less expensive. More integrated financial products for risk diversification with fair returns will enhance personal, household and societal wealth. In the first phase of SET’s five-year strategy, the focus will be on strengthening the domestic capital market by deepening the market’s significance in the overall economy. This will enable the Exchange to bolster regional alliances and become a key regional player, able to expand strong global linkages. SET’s five-year key performance indicators include doubling capitalization of the cash equity market and its revenue by 2013 - with 25% of this income coming from new products. The Exchange will increase foreign listings to not less than 5% of total market capitalization. In addition, BoG has approved the establishment of Capital Market Development Fund (CMDF) separate from SET’s other functions. CMDF will focus on long-term capital market development through investor education, capital market personnel development and support for SET Research Institute, corporate governance and corporate social responsibility. The Exchange will reorganize its operations and structure to ensure customer satisfaction, new product development and effective post-trade system management. SET will fund both this reorganization and CMDF, with restructuring being completed by early 2009. The bourse anticipates that the requisite legal framework will be in place by 2009, covering issues such as ownership, structure and regulatory roles after demutualization. SET will discuss these matters with Securities and Exchange Commission, Ministry of Finance and other parties and present a proposal to National Capital Market Development Committee.