Retail investors who subscribe to Thailand Future Fund's (TFF) initial public offering (IPO) units will get rights for the first allotment for a 10,000-baht investment, a move meant to offer the fund to as many individual investors as possible.
For those who intend to buy more than the minimum requirement of 10,000 baht, leftover portions of 1,000 baht will be earmarked in the following rounds until the units are sold out, said Charnwit Nakburi, deputy director-general of the State Enterprise Policy Office.
The fund's first-year return is a range of 4.75-5.3%, which is expected to lure investors as its underlying asset is government projects, deemed to carry lower risk than other infrastructure funds, he said.
The government's first infrastructure fund is likely to pay a dividend four times a year, though the fund prospectus stated twice, said Mr Charnwit.
The subscription period for TFF, with a fundraising size of 45 billion baht, is between Oct 12 and 19. Investors can buy fund units at branches of Bangkok Bank, Krungthai Bank, Phatra Securities and Finansa Securities.
A cabinet resolution called for 45% of future revenue from the Chalong Rat Expressway and Burapha Withi Expressway, both owned by Expressway Authority of Thailand (Exat), to be used to back TFF's first batch of units.
Proceeds arising from the fund's IPO will be used to finance construction of the expressway linking Rama III Road-Dao Khanong and the Western Outer Ring Road, worth 30.4 billion baht, as well as the third stage of the long-delayed northern expressway linking the Kasetsart intersection and Nawamin Road, also known as the N2 section, worth 14.4 billion baht.
Mr Charnwit said large local funds, including the Government Pension Fund and National Health Security Office, as well as foreign investors have shown interest in TFF because the fund's income derives from toll revenue, which increases every year.
The TFF is expected to receive around 2.2 billion baht in revenue from both expressways next year, he said.
The expressways have a combined length of 83.2 kilometres and revenue is projected to continue rising because they are core roads linked with the Eastern Economic Corridor.
From September 2015 to September 2017, the two expressways had average combined traffic of 369,464 car units per day, said Exat.
Total revenue for both expressways was 4.67 billion baht for fiscal 2017 and 3.59 billion for the first nine months of fiscal 2018, ending in June.