A research submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Business Administration, School of Management

Research Studies Project Report (M.B.A.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 1990

This study examines the relationship between the price movement, the return on stocks, and operating financial results of five firms in the Electrical and Electronics Equipment Group listed on the Securities Exchange of Thailand (SE'I') and five firms in the same group listed in the Societe des Bourses Francaise (SBF') or the French Stock Exchange. The purpose is to carry out the differences between high technology firms with other firms in the securities market. The sample companies selected have experienced in the high technology electronic industry for several years. The volatility of their prices relative to the market index varies from firm to firm and the result of each firm's stock return, price earning ratio, beta ( based on the Capital Asset Pricing· Model - CAPM), correlation coefficient (H.-squared), price movement and so forth are adopted as analytical tools for measuring this high technology firm's performance. Besides, several parameters such as dividend per share, earning per share, return on equity, return on asset and sales growth, percentage of R&D expenditure to total revenue, percentage of engineers to total employees are also concerned. After the evaluation of both Thai and French sample firms, the conclusions come up with several significant measures used to differentiate Thai firm from French firm. In summary, stocks of high technology firms in France have different characteristics from those of high technology firms in Thailand. The higher the technological level, the less the dependent relationship between the stock return and the market return. Also, French firms are risk taking firms and tend to diversify their businesses through multinational subsidiaries. Thai firms, on the other hand, are fast growing firm and are in the initial stage of technological development. French high-tech firms spend much more for their research and development activities and recruit more technological manpower than do the Thai firms. As a result, their revenue earned per employee are much higher. Recommendation for further study is described in the last chapter.