Thai Super Rich
Posted by Stuart at 11:26 AM on December 15, 2004A colleague pointed out an interesting article on the Internet this morning, concerning a survey by the magazine of Money & Banking and Chulalongkorn University and it listed the richest people in Thailand.
Want to guess who is the richest person in Thailand? Some frugal old man who has worked all his life and saved his money? A financial genius? The founder of one of the world's biggest software makers?
Nope. The richest man in Thailand is a young man named Pinthongtha Shinawatra. He is worth 18.03 billion baht (about US$450 million). How did he get his money? He got it from his father, Thaksin Shinawatra who had to give it away before he could become the Prime Minister of Thailand.
Other Shinawatra's in the list included:
#2 Thaksin's brother-in-law Bannapot Damapong -- 15.27 billion baht (US$381.75 million)
#4 Thaksin's son Panthongtae Shinawatra -- 11.09 billion baht (US$277.25 million)
#28 Thakin's youngest daughter (still in college, and if I'm not mistaken, has/had a part-time job at McDonalds) 1.42 billion baht (US$35.5 million).
#65 Thaksin's younger sister
#321 Thaksin's wife
Now, I don't mind people being rich. Someone has to do it. But I think that one paragraph stands out more than the rest:
Ten leading families with close ties to the government altogether controlled over 40 percent of the market capitalization of the Stock Exchange of Thailand, with over 10 percent held by the prime minister's family alone, [Suriyasai Katasila, secretary-general of the Campaign for Popular Democracy] was quoted by the Bangkok Post as saying.
Since I don't have any access to these 10 families, I don't think I will be investing in the Thai stock market any time soon.
(The whole article can be found at http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2004-12/14/content_2332082.htm)
Thanks for the correction, John. I've been in Thailand for two years and I still can't always figure out if Thai names are masculine or feminine. (For example, the Piya names I talked about earlier are both girls and boys.) But now that you mentioned it, Pinthongtha does sound like a girl's name...
Actually, Pinthongtha Shinawatra is Thaksin's daughter. At age 22, it must be nice to have so much of Daddy's money. Of course, it's not as though she nor any of the multitudes of family members named actually control any of the stock that is listed in their names. Daddy, of course, is in control of all of it.
The amounts mentioned only record their stockholdings. If all their assets are added in, it's been estimated that Big Daddy net worth is 1 (One) T(with a T)rillion baht.