UPA: A Company with 2 Names, 4 Businesses and Possibly Something Good Hidden

The recent talk of the town in Thai stock market was the acquisition of 12.83% stake in United Power of Asia Public Company Limited (UPA) by “Wichai Wachiraphong” from “Katreeya Bever” at the price of 0.16 baht per share, which was lower than the closing price on November 26, 2020 of 0.19 baht per share, in the amount of 208 million baht.

 

UPA was originally known as Cyber Planet Interactive Public Company Limited (CYBER), established in 2000 with the main purpose to conduct gaming software development for domestic and overseas customers under the trademark “Cyber Planet Interactive”. In  2010, the Company converted into a public company limited and listed in the Market for Alternative Investment (mai). 

 

As gaming software development was not as popular as before, UPA in 2013 has expanded its business to real estate and a year later approved the increase of registered shares with an allotment of shares to private placement (PP).

 

In 2015, UPA seeked for other investment opportunities by stepping into the power industry and has promoted former Board of Directors of Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT) and former Managing Director of Ratchaburi Electricity Generating Holding Public Company Limited (later renamed to Ratch Group Public Company Limited-RATCH) Mr. Noppol Milinthanggoon as Company’s selling point, and has been registered for a name change to United Power of Asia Public Company Limited (UPA) in order to be consistent with its expansion to the energy business.

 

Then in 2019, UPA penetrated the utilities business by generating water supply and selling water to Nam Papa Nakhone Luang of Laos. 

 

In mid-September, 2020 UPA proceeded a capital increment via rights offering (RO) at the price of 0.15 per share, leading “Katreeya Bever” to become the second major shareholder of UPA, holding 14.64% stake from 2.25%.  

 

“Katreeya Bever” was a famous Thai model before turned to investor who hold several stocks including Sri Trang Gloves (Thailand) Public Company Limited (STGT), QTC Energy Public Company Limited (QTC) and Pace Development Corporation Public Company Limited (PACE) (shares have already been disposed). It was expected that “Katreeya Bever” could book at least 13 million baht from the selling of UPA.

 

As of now, UPA has 3 core businesses consisting of energy, utilities and real estate, while gaming software is slowly dying and will soon “Game Over”  

 

However, the performance of UPA was not that good as the loss for the nine-month period of this year increased to 24 million baht compared to a total revenue of 71 million baht. So, why Wichai purchased this equity..? 

 

By the way, after Wichai was named in UPA’s shareholder list, the share price on Nov 30 has hit the ceiling.