jbaldwin

The UK has a 48 page option and I know the USA guys can get pages added (UK cannot). I find the more backward a country the more paperwork they need to get anything done.

I think they can add pages to the new biometric UK passports.

No. Not allowed

The UK's position has always been that adding pages allows an unacceptable risk of fraud. It is too easy to remove added pages or move them into another passport. I do not think that this view will change.

Nothing required for any of these distinations

This reply relates to the UK position. US shares might be different.

1) Dividends are paid to any shareholder who owns share on the "Ex-Div" day, normally about six`weeks before payment date. There is no minimum holding period. The share price will fall by an amount equivilent to the divident on the ex-div date to reflect the fact that the shares no longer have the right to the dividend payment.

2) Remember that dividends are paid out of company profits that have already been subject to corporation tax. If dividends were subject to normal income tax then the profits would be double taxed. For a zero, 10% or 20% tax payer no additional income tax is payable (and no tax can be reclaimed)

3) There are two optionss. If you open a nominee account then the shares will be registered in the name of the broker and dividends will be paid to your brokers account. If you have an individual CREST account then the share will be registered in your name and dividends will be paid by cheque unless you complete a form to have them paid directly to your bank account.

Take them to a supermarket. They need change and are happy to change for you

a question to the 2 tv members who felt the need to try and guide the op in the direction of settrade and tsd to help in the quest to find private confidential info on individual investors

would you like your broker or the set to divuldge your private details for public knowldege?

the op will find out by himself that thai brokers are not in the business of selling their private clients details and neither for that matter are the set and its subsid. tsd.

Under UK law, all limited companies, whether quoted on the stock exchange or not, must file a copy of their shareholders register with Companies House and this information is publically available to anyone who wishes to obtain it. It seems entirely reasonable to me that anyone dealing with a company should be able to know who owes that company.

My reply was that the OP needs to establish whether in Thailand this information is publically available as it is, for example, in the UK or, as you indicate in your reply, confidential.

Thailand Securities Depository Co Ltd (www.tsd.co.th) maintain shareholder registers for SET quoted companies.

I am not sure whether the shareholders register is public information or not in Thailand. I suggest you contact them and ask.

The reason goes back to to when the UK currency was made up of pounds, shillings and pence (one shilling was 12 pence and 20 shillings were one pound. It was extremely difficult to divide.

Please add me to the list

Govt bail out thorugh the Finance Ministry

Indeed.

There is absolutly no risk.

And furthermore, we need to remember the complete name of that "bank" : "Thai MILITARY Bank".

That helps a lot.

However, and seriously, I don't understand how come ING (dutch bank) could really be willing to invest into TMB.

As the article said, DBS from Singapore has burned itself with TMB (they had 22 % of shares).

I think that one of the reasons that ING is interested in buying is because the bank has been badly managed. They will pay price that is based on its current value based on current trading and not, the much higher, potential value if management improvements lead to better preformance in the future.

Generally it is badly managed not well managed banks that are taken over. In the UK Abbey National was widely regarded as the worse managed and poorest preforming bank and it is now the only major UK bank that it now under foriegn ownership.

I also beleive that another attraction for ING will be to use TMB's branch network as a distribution channel for its mutual funds business.

She will also have to clear immigration in bangkok before collecting the baggage. You need to allow a lot of time. The AirAsia ticket is worthless if she misses the connection.

I am 42. I stopped working in the UK, sold my house in London and moved to Thailand nearly five years ago.

Given that it is increasingly unlikely that I will ever return to the UK, my current priority is to gradually move a greater proportion of my investments into assets demoninated in Thai Baht. As most of my future expenditure will be in this currency this is important to reduce the level of currency risk.

The problem is what to invest in.

I do not want too much on deposit in Thai banks given that a one year deposit here pays 2.25%, whereas Nationwide in currently paying 6.7% for a one year deposit in pounds.

Also Thai equities, while they look cheap to me, are very much more volatile than "developed country" equity markets. If I put too much in Thai equities then what I gain on lower currency risk might be lost with higher equitiy risk.

So I am looking at other assets classes.

The most obvious choose with be to purchase another Condo to rent out. In Pattaya there is fairly strong demand from long term falang stayers who do not want to own property. Rental yields are about 7.5%. However, I am negative on capital values in Pattaya given the very hugh amount of new development aimed at the falang market.

One other possibility would be commercial property funds, such as Future Park Property Fund or Ticon Property Fund. These yield between 7% and 9% and appear much less volatile than Thai equities. Anyone has a view on these funds?

I would like to open a Thai Stocktrading account. Is it possible for a falang to do this. Has anyone any recommendation for falang friendly firms. I live in Pattaya so a company with an office there would be preferable

I cannot understand the 0.4% figure. A standard savings accounts pays 0.75%

Rates have gone down a lot in recent years. The 3m baht a keep on one year for my investment visa paid 4.75% last year but only 2.25% this year

I believe the the developer has only said that the stop on work is because of "construction problems" but has given no details of the nature of the problem. I have been told that the "construction problem" is that the contractor will do no further work until they have been paid but I have no way of confirming whether this is true

Publicity for Ocean 1 seems to have tailed off sharply over the last few months Not sure whether they are doing so well they no longer have to advertise or whether they developers are just letting the idea that anyone would build such a tall building in this area slowly slip from peoples memories

The OP is right is point out the very high historical rates of return available on property in this area. This is what normally happens when a bubble pushed prices to unstainable levels

In Thailand if you do not work you almost certainly will not get a credit card. The credit limit will be set at a multiple of monthly salary.

Generally that only posibility is a secured card. ie you get a credit limit backed by a cash deposit in a blocked account

Your experience is absolutely normal. Immigration will not accept passbook entries as evidence that fund were transferred from overseas.

This is not a big deal. Just go to your bank and ask for a copy of the SWIFT transfer receipt. It would take less time and effort to just do this this than you have spent to complain about having to do so.

It least you will now be prepared for immigation requests next year.

The point is that where a property is company owned you sell the company and not the property. This reduces tax paid on the sale.

Owning a property within a company with other activities can cause problems and is not recommended

This is one aspect of Thai property development that I really cannot understand. It seems to be fairly common for banks financing developments to make their committment conditional on selling a certain number of units (often as much 30%). However, I cannot understand why anyone would agree buy from a developer who has not already got financing in place. I would never consider buying at least until building had started

I beleive that extentions to 30 days stamps are no longer routinely granted.

Nearly all hotels will provide pick up services. Using these cuts out all the problems with Airport Taxis

I you have a visa (of any type) you do not need an onward ticket. They are only required for the 30 day visa exempt entry.

Maybe is my fault, maybe I can't express me well in english language.

My question is very simple one.

If the embassy, consulate etc... give me a remark , they must also give me some clarifications.

If the remark say: the holder of this passport travel to Thailand under a tourist visa several times wich may result in the refusal of a visa up to 1-2-5 or 10 years . Is ok. I can understand.

But instead says : the holder of this passport travel to Thailand under a tourist visa several times wich may result in the refusal of a visa in the future.

Saying in this way it means that I cannot get any kind of visa for the rest of life .

For what? In order which crime ?

It seems me a madness

To give you a tourist visa the Visa Officer at the embassy or Consulate must be satisified that you intend to enter Thailand as a tourist and not far some other purpose. There are guidelines about the information required but these are only guidelines not firm rules. If you are entering Thailand as a tourist then your normal place of residence must be outside Thailand. What the stamp appears to be staying is that you spend such a large proportion of your time in Thailand it looks like you lare planning to live in Thailand rather than plannng to come as a tourist. I think that part of the problem is that historically Thailand has been so easy in giving tourist visas to people who clearly are not tourists, I small move towards normal international standard is a big shock.

You cannot be in Thailand for more than 90 days in ANY six month period. So if you arrived on 25 June 2007 you get 90 days until 24 December.