Thailand update December 2022

To: All New Nordic Group Customers

We wish to update all customers of the status of New Nordic developments in Thailand.

For New Nordic Development Co Ltd, we have appealed the judgement of the Bankruptcy Court in refusing the application for business reorganisation. The appeal process took some time as we were gathering information with which to support the appeal.

In this regard, the most notable piece of information has been the resumption of significant international visitation to Thailand. After a slow start consequent to the COVID pandemic, the first 6 months of 2022 saw a little over 2 million international visits to Thailand. Subsequently, the leap in tourist numbers has the Tourism Authority of Thailand estimating 10 million tourists for this year (this is all the more remarkable given the Chinese tourism market is yet to resume), tourists in next year 2023 will potentially exceed 20 million, and by 2024 tourists will be around 40 million, which were pre-COVID numbers.

Importantly, the business of NND exhibits very strong correlation with international visitor numbers, and we can report significant recovery in the unit leasing business. In all, we consider these numbers should provide sufficient reason for the Appeal Court to allow NND to enter business reorganisation. In this regard, the timing of any decision is solely at the will of the Court, we are hopeful that a positive decision will be forthcoming in March, allowing for the New Year shut down.

In the meantime, NND continues to recover operations as quickly as possible. We are having to deal with critical cashflow issues which has caused some adverse impact on other parts of the business but we confirm once again that NND continues to operate in the interest of its customers.

In respect of other companies of the group in Thailand, it is the intention of their management to deliver a recovery on the back of NND’s return to normal business operations. Management time has been highly focussed on attending to such and on having to deal with some adverse rulings emanating from action brought by creditors in the civil courts. However, management continues to be hopeful that they can achieve a mutually acceptable resolution to the various issues facing these companies, which in turn will lead to recovery of these companies.