Thailand’s biggest contractor is talking to banks about loans as it faces a liquidity crunch, Bangkok Post reports.
The Italian-Thai Development company (ITD), founded in 1958, said the talks followed delays in payments to workers and suppliers.
Trading in the company’s shares was suspended this month after it failed to submit a 2023 financial statement by the deadline.
As of September last year, the company has a total liability of $2.9bn, including bonds, loans and trade credit.
The company posted losses of about $170m between 2020 and 2022. One cause of these was the military takeover of Myanmar in 2021 which ended its involvement with the Dawei Special Economic Zone.
To strengthen its balance sheet, the company is looking to sell its 90% stake in Asia Pacific Potash for about $500m and is looking to extend by two years the maturity period of about $420m of bonds.
ITD has handled some of the largest contracts in recent Thai history, including a high-speed railway, expressways and Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi International Airport.
Pornanong Budsaratragoon, the secretary-general of Thailand’s Securities and Exchange Commission, said this week that his agency had been “in close discussion with related parties about Italian-Thai”. He added: “The impact will probably be much greater than other cases if the company really has financial trouble, given its size.”
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