Bangkok, February 17, 2016 ?  The SEC is seeking public comments on proposed amendments to the initial public offering (IPO) rules. The amendments aim to facilitate sufficient share distribution to retail investors and prevent inproportionate share allocation to patrons and related persons of the issuing company in such a way that could control the IPO volume on the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET), which could subsequently cause irregular trading after the securities listing.    

The proposed key changes concerning IPO share allocation are:
1. To redefine the term, ?patron? as any person who makes useful contributions to the issuing company clearly and continuously, and to limit the collective shareholding of all patrons and related persons up to 25 percent of the IPO shares sold;
2. To shorten the deadline for the IPO post-offering report from 45 to 7 business days as from the closing offer date in sync with the deadline for securities listing; and
3. To extend the prohibition period for share offering below the offer price to specific persons from 90 days before the offer date to 180 days before the filing date of the IPO application.

The consultation paper is available at www.sec.or.th. Stakeholders and interested parties are welcome to submit comments through the website or facsimile at 0-2263-6502 or email: corporat@sec.or.th.  

The public hearing ends on March 14, 2016.