After all the hullabaloo about
former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's accumulation of wealth, one might have expected him to
head up the list of Thailand's richest men. After all, he did own the country's biggest mobile phone network before his fall from grace and went on to buy the
Manchester City football club while in exile.
But Thaksin is not the richest by far. The country's wealthiest man is
Chaleo Yoovidhya. Never heard of him? Well, maybe you know the product that made him an estimated fortune of 4 billion US dollars - Red Bull. Yes, the world's favourite
energy drink is a Thai invention. Second on the list is another purveyor of beverages - the Chang beer boss
Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi at US$3,9 million. In fact, of the 40 richest people in Thailand named by Forbes magazine, eight of them got rich through food and beverages, a record for any country. The names have remained fairly stable for years, a sign that the businesses were set up decades ago and continue to be run by the same families.
Although Thaksin comes in at
only 16th place with a net worth of 400 million dollars, this is still 100 million up on last year. And there is still the prickly little matter of the
two billion US dollars frozen by the Thai authorities. That's the fortune he made from the 2006 sale of his telecoms company to Singapore. Put that back on his
balance sheet and he returns to the super league. In fact, he can start thinking of hob-nobbing with the beverage barons.
After all the hullabaloo about former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's accumulation of wealth, one might have expected him to head up the list of Thailand's richest men. After all, he did own the country's biggest mobile phone network before his fall from grace and went on to buy the Manchester City football club while in exile.
But Thaksin is not the richest by far. The country's wealthiest man is Chaleo Yoovidhya. Never heard of him? Well, maybe you know the product that made him an estimated fortune of 4 billion US dollars - Red Bull. Yes, the world's favourite energy drink is a Thai invention. Second on the list is another purveyor of beverages - the Chang beer boss Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi at US$3,9 million. In fact, of the 40 richest people in Thailand named by Forbes magazine, eight of them got rich through food and beverages, a record for any country. The names have remained fairly stable for years, a sign that the businesses were set up decades ago and continue to be run by the same families.
Although Thaksin comes in at only 16th place with a net worth of 400 million dollars, this is still 100 million up on last year. And there is still the prickly little matter of the two billion US dollars frozen by the Thai authorities. That's the fortune he made from the 2006 sale of his telecoms company to Singapore. Put that back on his balance sheet and he returns to the super league. In fact, he can start thinking of hob-nobbing with the beverage barons.
