Bangkok Commercial Asset Management Plc (BAM) expects to establish two new joint venture asset management companies (JV-AMCs), aligning with the government’s new debt resolution programme.
BAM, the country’s largest AMC, is setting up the JV-AMCs in partnership with two commercial banks. Each JV-AMC will manage the secured non-performing loans (NPLs) of its respective partner bank, with the first expected to be established by the end of this year, said chief executive Rak Vorrakitpokatorn.
Each JV-AMC will initially begin operations with a bad asset base of around 10 billion baht, he said.
The assets under management are expected to expand to roughly 30-50 billion baht per JV-AMC within 3-5 years, after which the portfolio size will be maintained, said Mr Rak.
“Under the JV-AMC model, BAM does not need to raise new capital to support the NPL management programme. The company also plans to rehire retired employees to strengthen its debt resolution efforts,” he said.
The two new JV-AMCs align with the government’s “Clear Debt, Move Forward” debt resolution initiative, expanding BAM’s portfolio beyond its two existing JV-AMCs. BAM operates Ari AMC, a joint venture with Government Savings Bank, and Arun AMC, a partnership with Kasikornbank.
As of September 2025, total NPLs under management by Ari and Arun tallied 9.66 billion baht, of which 87% were unsecured loans.
Ari AMC managed bad assets worth 9.47 billion baht, comprising entirely secured loans. During the first nine months of the year, Ari and Arun reported net profits of 82 million baht and 73 million baht, respectively.
The government’s initiative employs the AMC framework to target small borrowers with total NPLs of less than 100,000 baht per person. The programme is scheduled to launch on Jan 1, 2026.
Under the scheme, unsecured NPLs from banks and their subsidiaries are transferred to Sukhumvit Asset Management, the country’s second-largest AMC supervised by the Bank of Thailand.
Meanwhile, NPLs from state-owned specialised financial institutions are transferred to Ari AMC.
In addition, Mr Rak said the company plans to manage NPLs in the banking sector through another partnership model known as profit-sharing management.
BAM previously adopted this model in collaboration with TMBThanachart Bank to manage the bank’s distressed debt portfolio.
BAM expects its total NPL portfolio to increase to 597 billion baht by the end of 2025, up from 587 billion as of August.
For the first nine months of the year, the company reported a net profit of 1.69 billion baht, a 57% year-on-year increase, driven primarily by cash collections of 13.8 billion baht, up 27% from the previous year.