Shareholders of the SET-listed telecom company Intouch Holdings on Tuesday approved a merger with Gulf Energy, the power company controlled by billionaire Sarath Ratanavadi, clearing the way for a trillion-baht merger to go ahead.
Gulf Energy is currently valued at 701 billion baht, while its telecom affiliate Intouch has a market capitalisation of 320 billion. Gulf shareholders approved the tie-up in October 2024.
A filing by Intouch on Tuesday showed that holders of more than 99% of its shares had voted in favour of approving the registered capital of the newly formed entity.
The amalgamation is scheduled to be completed on March 31, with shares in the newly formed Gulf Development Plc to begin trading on the Stock Exchange of Thailand on April 2.
Gulf, the largest shareholder of the satellite operator Thaicom, and Intouch, which controls the mobile phone giant Advanced Info Service (AIS), in July announced their intent to create a new company to maximise benefits for both firms and improve operations and investments.
The boards of both AIS and Thaicom had asked their investors to reject the tender offers under their merger in January. Spokespersons for the two companies were not immediately available for comment on Tuesday.
Gulf currently owns a 47.4% stake in Intouch, while Singapore Telecommunication (Singtel) has an interest of around 25%.
Gulf Development is planning to spend 100 billion baht over the next five years to restructure its energy and telecom businesses, and to expand into data centre and cloud service development, said Mr Sarath, Thailand’s second richest businessman with a net worth of $9.8 billion.