In the News: 2005

Lombard Announces IPO of Thailand's First Industrial Property Fund

PR Newswire
17 May 2005

Lombard Investments, Inc. is pleased to announce the listing of TICON Property Fund (ticker: TFUND.TB), Thailand's first listed property fund focusing on industrial properties. TFUND raised BHT 1.7 billion to acquire 39 tenanted factories located in various industrial estates from TICON. TICON acquired 33% of the offering, while the remaining shares were placed to institutional and retail investors. TFUND is managed by ING Funds (Thailand) Co. Ltd, while TICON acts as property manager. TFUND is listed on the Stock Exchange of Thailand and began trading on May 12, 2005.

TICON, Thailand's leading industrial facility outsourcing company, constructs, leases, and manages factories primarily for light industrial applications in various industrial estates around Thailand. Currently, TICON owns and manages a portfolio of 183 factories with 69 factories in the development pipeline in 11 industrial estates on the Eastern Seaboard and north of Bangkok. In February, 2004, Lombard's Thailand Equity Fund invested $11.7 million in TICON through a special issue of convertible preferred shares.

The Thailand Equity Fund is a USD245 million private equity fund sponsored by Lombard Investments, Inc., headquartered in San Francisco, and the International Finance Corporation (IFC), part of the World Bank Group. The fund was formed with the support of the Government of the Kingdom of Thailand to make private equity investments in operationally competitive Thai businesses. Investors in the fund include the IFC, California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS), Asian Development Bank, DEG (a member of Germany's KfW Group), the Ministry of Finance of the Government of Thailand, and fifteen leading Thai banks and other institutions.