21 Facts About Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi

Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi is a Thai business magnate and investor.

Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi is the founder of Thai Beverage, and the chairman of conglomerates TCC Group and Fraser and Neave, Ltd.

Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi owns 50 hotels in Asia, the US, UK, and Australia, including Plaza Athenee in Manhattan, New York City, US, and The Okura Prestige Bangkok.

Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi left school early, at the age of nine, to work.

Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi speaks Teochew, his native Chinese dialect, as well as Thai.

Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi started by supplying distilleries producing Thai whiskey, which were a state-run monopoly at the time.

All liquor production was state-owned at the time, and Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi was able to get rights to 15 percent of the market.

Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi was able to take out a US$200 million loan using his large stocks of alcohol as collateral and soon after won 100 percent of the concessions.

In 1991, Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi teamed up with the Danish brewer Carlsberg to tap into Thailand's growing beer market, at the time dominated by the 60-year-old Boon Rawd Brewery which made Singha beer.

Since the early-2000s, Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi has successfully been able to branch out into property development through the creation of TCC Land Co.

Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi is one of the largest property developers in Thailand, investing in and developing residential, hospitality and retail sites, as well as engaging in property management, logistics, agro-business and several property funds in Thailand and Singapore.

In early-2013, Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi won a bidding war for Singapore's Fraser and Neave, Ltd.

In late-2015, rumours emerged that Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi was close to completing a takeover of English Premier League side Everton, a club which Chang Beer has sponsored since 2004.

Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi owns Berli Jucker PCL, the listed retail arm of TCC.

Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi's youngest daughter, Thapanee Techajareonvikul is an executive director and her husband Aswin Techajareonvikul Chief Executive Officer and President of Berli Jucker Company.

Since the Asian financial crisis of 1997 and attempts to further liberalize Thailand's competition laws in 1999, Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi has on occasion been able to use his political connections to increase his dominance over the country's alcohol industry.

Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi reportedly launched a campaign of resistance against the liberalisation of the local whisky market in the late-1990s and early-2000s.

Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi was reportedly able to do this due to his increasing clout since the Asian financial crisis, which saw him rescue hundreds of politically connected, debt-ridden Thai companies and projects.

Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi was able to avoid these new regulations as he had won all 12 bids for the previously government-held distilleries it ran on concession.

Boon Rawd Brewery, the producer of Singha beer, complained to Thailand's Fair Trade Department in October 2000 about Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi's dumping of cheap products on the market, which the company claimed impeded competition.

Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi was warned that his actions were "inappropriate"; however, the department eventually ruled in his favour after claiming that no law had been violated as regulations regarding the issue had not yet been finalised.