STOCKS NEWS THAILAND-Bank of Ayudhya gains on earnings hopes - Reuters STOCKS NEWS THAILAND-Bank of Ayudhya gains on earnings hopes - Reuters

Monday, May 28, 2012

STOCKS NEWS THAILAND-Bank of Ayudhya gains on earnings hopes - Reuters

STOCKS NEWS THAILAND-Bank of Ayudhya gains on earnings hopes - Reuters

Mon May 28, 2012 4:32am EDT

Shares in Bank of Ayudhya rose 2.7 percent to 28.25 baht on expectations of better second-quarter earnings, its highest since May 17. It outperformed the broader banking index , which fell as much as 0.4 percent.

"Bank of Ayudhya should deliver good second-quarter earnings, supported by strong lending growth, a sustained net interest margin, well-managed operating expenses and lower loan loss provisions," Bualuang Securities said in a research note.

The broker maintained its "buy" rating on the stock with a target price at 30.5 baht, on expectations of better earnings after the bank's recent non-performing loan (NPL) sales are set to improve its asset quality.

Bank of Ayudhya sold 2.4 billion baht ($75.8 million) worth of NPLs to Alpha Capital Asset Management Co last week. As bad retail loans comprised 80 percent of the NPLs, the sale of bad debts will reduce the bank's NPLs by 8.6 percent to 25.7 billion baht, Bualuang said.

At 0813 GMT, Bank of Ayudhya was up 1.82 percent at 28 baht.

1514 (0814 GMT)

(Reporting by Sinsiri Tiwutanond in Bangkok; sinsiri.tiwutanond@thomsonreuters.com)

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13:12 STOCKS NEWS THAILAND-Khonburi Sugar gains, despite concern over shortage

Sugar miller Khonburi Sugar Pcl gained 1.04 percent to 9.7 baht, while brokers said concern over a supply shortage may drag down the company's profit for 2012.

Maybank Kim Eng Securities rated the shares a "speculative buy" with a target price of 12.3 baht, while expecting Khonburi Sugar's 2012 profit to drop by 767 million Thai baht ($24.22 million) from the previous year due to a 12 percent fall in sugarcane supply.

"It is expected that global sugar production for the year 2012 to 2013 will rise, especially from Asia and Europe ... this would put pressure on Khonburi Sugar's export prices in 2013," Maybank said in a research note.

However, sugar exports could peak in the second and third quarters, helping the company post stronger profits in the following quarters, the broker said.

In addition, its lower valuation compared to its peer Khon Kaen Sugar Pcl still renders the shares attractive, despite profit risks in 2013, it added.

At 0558 GMT, rival Khon Kaen Sugar shares remained flat at 12.4 baht.

1258 (0558 GMT)

(Reporting by Sinsiri Tiwutanond in Bangkok; sinsiri.tiwutanond@thomsonreuters.com)

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11:31 STOCKS NEWS THAILAND: Raimon Land hits 12-day high

Shares in real-estate developer Raimon Land Pcl rose as much as 3.3 percent to a 12-day high of 1.57 baht, after several brokers rated the stock a 'buy' on expectations The River - its high-end condominium project in Bangkok - would boost profit growth in the second half of 2012.

Despite company executives on Friday saying Raimon planned to postpone the transfer of The River's property to its clients to mid-June, brokers said the 1-billion-baht ($31.58 million) asset transfer would prop up second-quarter earnings, after a loss of 70 million baht in the first quarter.

"Second quarter's earnings are expected to see a 1-billion-baht increase driven by the asset transfer of The River in mid-June, which well help see a recovery in profit of around 100 million baht," Trinity Securities said in a research note.

"The third and fourth quarters are expected to see outstanding performances from the transfer as well, with an estimated 3 billion baht per quarter, totalling around 500 to 600 million baht in profit each," it added.

The broker also forecast a net profit of 1.18 billion baht in 2012, driven by sales of the condominium. Trinity rated the shares a 'buy', with a target price of 2 baht.

The stock later eased to up 0.6 percent at 1.53 baht, while the main Thai index was down 0.5 percent.

1118 (0418 GMT)

($1 = 31.7 baht)



5 Business Factors That Can Make or Break CRM - E-Commerce Times

This story was originally published on Feb. 23, 2012, and is brought to you today as part of our Best of ECT News series.

I have a lot of fun writing about CRM -- the ideas, the tools and how they're brought together as a coherent strategy Get Whitepaper: Simple Strategies for Enhancing eCommerce Profitability. CRM is a foundation on which to build relationships, layer on additional sales Learn how 3D interactive characters fundamentally change the way users interact with a site. and support tools, and create a customer-centric business.

But this foundation needs a foundation. After all, businesses thrived even before CRM technology Discover Proven Strategies to Improve the Security of Your Products. Free Whitepaper. was invented, and they flourished long before the acronym was coined. While we in the CRM space like to say that you need a solid CRM foundation in place before you can grow to the next level (which, these days, is most often defined as social CRM), we tend to forget that CRM itself needs to rest on a solid foundation.

What is that foundation built on? A bunch of things that are, in general, never considered when we talk about CRM, but which can heavily influence CRM's effectiveness for good and for ill, based on how well the business executes on them.

There are many foundational things that every business should strive to master even before they have a CRM application in place, but here are five that serve as underpinnings for successful businesses, and thus as underpinnings of successful CRM efforts.

Services and Products

Businesses exist to create customers, wrote Peter Drucker, but customers exist because they have needs. The bottom-line question for your customers is this: Do the things I buy from this business satisfy my needs?

The real issues here are quality and value. If your products are faulty or second-rate compared to the competitors, or if they're priced wrong, it doesn't matter what kind of CRM magic you work -- your sales funnel will be more like a conveyor belt, with prospects proceeding down the pipeline to customers and then, rapidly, to ex-customers. And over time, quality and pricing issues (and their unpleasant cousin, delivery issues) will erode your customer base and create poor word of mouth. Unless you remedy this issue, your business is doomed to failure.

The Honesty Factor

Even with a good product or a well-delivered service, issues happen. A smart business understands this and has a plan in place to deal with these exceptions, and to do so in a way that assumes that customers are intelligent and, within reason, understanding.

Excuses that sound phony or inauthentic multiply the negative impact of a problem. Explanations that are sincere and candid, however, can have the exact opposite effect. For example, a very small business run by a friend took a serious delivery and production hit when its one employee was stricken by a nasty stomach flu just as a new product was supposed to ship. Rather than ignore the problem, he dragged himself to email and social media and explained the problem honestly. This brought a few angry customers but many more who sympathized and were understanding -- and, when he was able to return to work, almost no complaints about the delay.

Honesty as an underlying value of a business is not just morally laudable -- it's also key for forging better customer relationships and maintaining employee morale. Which brings us to ...

Employees' Attitude

I like to say that a CRM strategy should start with hiring. Employees with a customer-focused attitude are an asset whether or not you've invested in CRM software. Conversely, employees who lack that attitude can take a CRM investment of any amount and effectively reduce its value to zero.

Your management takes the data you collect in CRM and translates it into directives for actions and interactions that mean something to the customers; your employees carry out those directives. Without the proper focus on the customer, management and employees are unlikely to connect the dots between data and dealings with the people who keep your business in business.

Respect for Process

CRM also helps automate many of the sales, marketing and support tasks that dominate most customer relationships. That allows your business to scale in terms of the number of customers each employee can care for. To do that, however, means that all employees who need to interface with CRM do so. That starts with the sales team and carries through to the rest of the organization; adhering to the process of using CRM is as important as adhering to any other company process.

There is an exception to this, however: When an employee sees an area where process is preventing customer satisfaction, he or she should be able to take action to override or modify the policy. Process and productivity mean nothing to individual customers, and employees need to be empowered to step out of process when necessary.

Your Commitment to Support

Too many businesses stop paying attention to their customers after the sale closes and only begin paying attention again when it's time to sell again. Smart businesses know that an ongoing relationship is the best route to ongoing sales, and a natural place for contact in that relationship comes in customer support.

Companies that have a commitment to support do a good job of meeting customers' needs regardless of whether they are a one-person shop with a single telephone line or a large corporation with several call centers -- the technology simply lets bigger businesses scale up more effectively. Sadly, when the emphasis is all on sales, support is seen as a cost center and doesn't get the care and feeding it deserves. That's why so many service calls leave customers more agitated at the end of the call than they were at the beginning, even if the problem that triggered the call is resolved.

When a business fails in any of these areas, the customer relationships that were the goal of its CRM investments are ruined -- which raises the question: Why did you invest in CRM if you weren't willing to build a foundation on which it could rest?




World stocks mixed amid bargain-hunting vs caution - Yahoo Finance

BANGKOK (AP) -- Asian stocks eked out gains Thursday as traders hunted for bargains after sharp selling in recent days, but markets in Europe fell amid intensifying fears of a messy exit by Greece from the euro common currency.

Greece called a new round of elections for June 17 after coalition talks to form a government fell apart. The president said depositors were pulling hundreds of millions of euros out of banks, weakening the country's strained financial system.

The developments fueled fears that Greece would exit the euro currency and shake global markets. In elections earlier this month, Greek voters punished parties that supported tough austerity measures needed to secure international bailout money.

But analysts at Credit Agricole CIB in Hong Kong said the scheduling of new Greek elections suggested "a reduction in near-term uncertainties" that could lead to some relief for volatile markets.

Britain's FTSE 100 fell 0.4 percent to 5,380.72 in early trading. Germany's DAX fell 0.2 percent to 6,373.01 and France's CAC-40 lost 0.2 percent to 3,042.45.

U.S. stocks were set for a moderately higher opening, with Dow Jones industrial futures up 0.3 percent at 12,610. S&P 500 futures rose 0.4 percent to 1,327.

In Asia, stock markets enjoyed a slight rebound as investors went bargain-hunting, analysts said.

Japan's Nikkei 225 climbed 0.9 percent to close at 8,876.59 after the country posted better-than-expected growth figures for the first quarter. South Korea's Kospi added 0.3 percent to 1,845.24. Benchmarks in Taiwan, New Zealand and the Philippines also rose.

Australia's S&P/ASX 200 slipped 0.2 percent to 4,157.40, dragged down by financial stocks. Hong Kong's Hang Seng closed 0.3 percent down at 19,200.93.

Mainland Chinese shares bounced back from early losses, buoyed by calls from the country's central bank governor, Zhou Xiaochuan, for market reforms.

The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index rose 1.4 percent to 2,378.89. The Shenzhen Composite Index also gained 1.4 percent to 954.95. Shares in brokerages, financial and trading-related companies led the gains.

Positive news on the U.S. economy on Wednesday underpinned sentiment in Asia. Construction of homes in April rose 2.6 percent from March, and U.S. factory production increased 0.6 percent in April, helped by a gain in auto production.

Some Japanese stocks saw big gains amid news that the country's economy grew at an annualized 4.1 percent for the January-March quarter thanks to a rebound in consumer spending.

Sharp Corp. jumped 5.7 percent and Mazda Motor Corp. added 3.8 percent. Steel company JFE Holdings shot up 5.5 percent.

Benchmark oil for June delivery was up 52 cents to $93.33 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. On Wednesday, the contract fell by $1.17 to finish at a seven-month low of $92.81 per barrel in New York.

In currencies, the euro fell to $1.2715 from $1.2725 late Wednesday in New York. The dollar rose to 80.35 yen from 80.29 yen.

___

AP researcher Fu Ting contributed from Shanghai.


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