Laos Stock Market

The Lao stock market has opened and is accepting requests for shares. So far only two companies have listed, BCEL Bank and EDL, the Lao Electricity Company, and offers for both of these have closed - they sold out amazingly quickly. Trading offically begins on 11 Jan.
Foreigners can buy shares, and I have done so. The BIG one that all are waiting for is the listing of Beer Lao. I have been told this will be about March/April.
Why am I posting this? Frankly, I think there is good money to be made by investing in certain stocks EDL sells hydro power to Thailand and China and is in the process of expanding. Beer Lao is a high quality product.

Do you have a link or somewhere to get further information so I can do some background work?

What is the level of corruption compared to Thailand?

Level of corruption is equivalent to Thailand. I will post a link tonight.

" Corruption is perceived as rampant. Laos ranks 151st out of 179 countries in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index for 2008, a slight improvement over 2007. Bribery of low-level officials to expedite business licenses and import permits is common, and there is growing anecdotal evidence of more pervasive corruption among higher-level officials within the executive and judicial branches "


taken from this source - http://www.heritage.org/index/country/Laos

I would shudder at the term " insider trading "

rufus wrote:The Lao stock market has opened and is accepting requests for shares. So far only two companies have listed, BCEL Bank and EDL, the Lao Electricity Company, and offers for both of these have closed - they sold out amazingly quickly. Trading offically begins on 11 Jan.
Foreigners can buy shares, and I have done so. The BIG one that all are waiting for is the listing of Beer Lao. I have been told this will be about March/April.
Why am I posting this? Frankly, I think there is good money to be made by investing in certain stocks EDL sells hydro power to Thailand and China and is in the process of expanding. Beer Lao is a high quality product.

I would expect growth there, to bad about the electricity, you know the big guys jumped on that one. Did you have to enter the country to sit up your account?

Corruption, say like insider trading pump and dump schemes, if so I think you will find that about anywhere.

Fill us in on what the process is, please,

rufus wrote:Level of corruption is equivalent to Thailand. I will post a link tonight.

Did you find the link or is corruption as endemic as Wazza tells us?

Bumper wrote:I would expect growth there, to bad about the electricity, you know the big guys jumped on that one. Did you have to enter the country to sit up your account?

Bumper, Rufus lives in Vientiane.

When I was there over Xmas I did notice an advert (invitation to buy) for the Electricity company stock in the Vientiane Times (previous week's edition). I vaguely recollect it being about the deadline at that time being extended.

The Vientiane Times (General News ) can be found here:
http://www.vientianetimes.org.la/
http://www.vientianetimes.com/Headlines.html

Well I guess I already have a piece of the action, I hold shares in Ratch (Thai Company), mentioned in the headlines Arjay posted.

Anywhere Government officials are not paid a good wage there will be corruption in some form. That being said if you review Arjay's links you will see a story of church people being held in jail for a illegal meeting. That's the scary part to me. It is a Communist Country, not developed yet like China and Vietnam

Doing research on businesses probably would prove to be difficult. Ok that's the bad stuff.

How about it being wide open now?

What are cost of shares, this could be a low cost market with a future ahead of it.

In investing you have to determine how much risk you are willing to take.

If I were involving myself in this it would be very small say 20K baht and see what happens. They are lot of things we don't know, are Capitol Gains Taxed. How easy is it to get the money out of Laos. Insider trading Demco is doing that right now buying it's own shares. The declare that on the SET and it's perfectly legal. When it is no declared that is illegal. That happens here as well. But, over time you develop contacts that can keep up to date on that.

Can you do same in Lao, I don't know. The electricity project is not some fly by night operation. China is funding a lot of that. There are Thai Contractors involved in construction. ITD being one, bit it seems to somewhere in the brain bucket that they pulled out.

It is a different world then what we see here. I once met a Chinese man from America who had spent a year on a fact finding tour, for sources of raw materials ect. The company finally settled on Buffalo hides to be used in leather projects. Never happened because Laos could not sit a number of how me hides could be delivered on regular basis.

As an investor who would you have to bribe? The second a guy said to me I had to give money under the table to buy a stock I would walk away.

Pump and dump those kind of schemes are happening right in her in Thailand nothing new about that. When you see a not so great company trading for 50 satang and hundred of million shares are being bought daily. What, do you think is going on.

But there are ways to track that right on the internet here. There not so sure.

So maybe lots of Opportunity and certainly a lot of questions to be answered.

Never bought shares going to laos in couple weeks how do I buy them. Can I just buy them in capital. Are there brokers or something. Does anyone know. thanks

Come on Rufus you bought stocks what's the proceedure?

Have been away.
The applications have closed, but more companies will be listed. I was told Beer Lao will list in April.
BCEL went up 25% since 11/1 and EDL 10%.
You apply when the shares are open for subscription - you need to open a BCEL trading account, which they will do on the spot for you. You then apply to buy the shares - this was done either at ITEC or at the stockmarket. The certificateswere available for collection as of yesterday.
As far as corruption is concerned, I think you will find that Forbes actuually ranks Thailand as more corrupt than Lao.

There's an interesting piece in NewMandela, titled Corruption and Media Exposure in Laos (scroll down to Feb 4)....echos what wazza mentioned above......might be good reading for anyone considering risking their money in the market there.
http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/newmandala/

Less corruption here than in LOS. By the way, had you bought BCEL shares in Dec you would bow have trebled your money.