Why Sondhi turned against Thaksin | 25.11.05
update 2 คนที่เอาลิงค์หน้านี้ไปแปะบน pantip.com อาจทำให้คุณเข้าใจผิดว่าหน้านี้มี “เบื้องหลัง” อะไรมากมายของคุณสนธิ. อันที่จริงภูมิหลังของคุณสนธิก็โชกโชนพอสมควรจริงๆ น่ะแหละ และก็หาดูได้ไม่ยากในเว็บไซต์ภาษาอังกฤษ ซึ่งส่วนหนึ่งผมและ Post Staffer (ดูในความเห็น) ก็ได้นำมาเสนอไว้นะที่นี้. แต่สิ่งที่ผมพยายามจะพูดก็คือ ผมไม่ทราบว่าเป็นส่วนใหนในประวัติอื้อฉาวนี้กันแน่ที่เป็นแรงจูงใจอันไม่บริสุทธิให้คุณสนธิออกมาเป็นหัวหอกในการพยายามโค่นล้มรัฐบาลแบบนี้ และก็ไม่มีทางพิสูจน์ด้วย. ไม่ใช่ว่าผมเชื่อว่าไม่มี แต่ผมเห็นว่าถึงมีหรือไม่มีก็ไม่มีความหมายเท่ากับความเลวร้าย เบื้องหน้า ของคุณสนธิที่เราสามารถชี้ให้เห็นกันง่ายๆ เช่น การใช้ manusaya.com ป้ายสีรัฐบาล เป็นต้น. การเอา “เบื้องหลัง” มาอ้างแบบเลื่อนลอยนั้นปล่อยให้เป็นเรื่องของคุณสนธิ, คุณเอกยุทธ, และนักปลุกระดมคนอื่นๆ ที่กำลังเล่นงานคุณทักษิณอยู่เถอะครับ. คนที่มีปัญญาอย่างเราควรใช้ข้อถกเถียงที่ดีกว่านั้น.
Even by the extremely Palmerstonian standards of Thai politics, Sondhi Limthongkul’s metamorphosis from fawning cheerleader to fire-breathing critic of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra left many scratching their heads.
Some point out that Bantoon Lamsam’s Kasikorn Bank is now the largest shareholder of the Manager Group. But I’m not sure that this hadn’t been the case when Sondhi was still a Thaksin partisan.Others say he made a request that Thaksin refused:
กลับมาสู่ คุณสนธิ บุคคลผู้นี้ทุกคนทราบดีว่าเป็นนักลงทุนและเกิดล้มละลาย (จริงหรือไม่จริงเจ้าตัวรู้เอง) กลับมากอบกู้สถานะของสิ่งพิมพ์ที่ลงทุนไปแล้วนับพันล้าน จนถูกกล่าวขวัญกันทั้งต่อหน้าและลับหลังว่า ตนเองก็มี “แผลอยู่เต็มตัว”
ทางเดียวที่คุณสนธิจะสู้ได้ถึงกับลั่นวาจาออกมา “เจ๊งให้รู้ไป” นั่นคือสู้อย่างบ้าเลือด เพื่อล้มคุณทักษิณหรือพังไปข้างให้ได้ เหมือนท่านนักวิชาการท่านหนึ่งพูดออกมา หากผิดกันก็คือ
มิได้ต่อสู้เพื่อผลประโยชน์ส่วนรวม ยังแฝงด้วย “โมหะจริต” อะไรก็แล้วแต่ แต่มีผลประโยชน์ส่วนตัวอยู่ไม่มากก็น้อย โดยเฉพาะสิ่งที่หลุดออกมาจากปากของท่านผู้นี้เองคือ ขอให้ฝ่ายแรกใช้อิทธิพลของผู้นำทางการเมือง ช่วยแบ่งเบาภาระที่ตนแบกอยู่ ตามประสาของนักธุรกิจใช้กัน ย่อมรู้ไส้กันหมดหมายถึงอะไร? คนรุ่นเก่าทราบดีว่า คุณสนธิเป็นมิตรสนิทคุณพันศักดิ์บุคคลใกล้ชิดคุณทักษิณ
Coming back to Khun Sondhi, everybody knows well this personage is an investor who went bankrupt (whether or not it is true the man himself knows). Returning to restore the publication that has cost him a billion in investment, he is known both to his face and behind his back to have himself “a closet full of skeletons”.
The only way for Khun Sondhi to fight is to declare to “fight to the death”. That is a crazed fight to topple Khun Thaksin or die trying, like one academic has said. The difference is:
[He] does not fight for public good, but is fused with “prejudice of hate” [originally “prejudice of stupidity” but likely a malapropism –ed.] or whatever. Especially the snippet that drops from his own mouth that is, asking the former [PM Thaksin] to use his influence as a political leader to relieve the burden that he [Sondhi] was bearing, the way businessmen ask one another. Old-timers know well that Khun Sondhi is good friends with Khun Pansak, who is close to Khun Thaksin.
The most serious problem with this sort of conspiracy theory is not that it cannot be proved, but that it cannot be disproved. Unfalsifiability makes bad science. Which is probably why so-called “political scientists” like it so much:
More alarmingly, Thaksin has surrounded himself with individuals who were integral in paving the road towards economic collapse in 1997. A media mogul, the owner and manager of the Poojadkarn (Manager) Group, is a close Thaksin associate. This mogul was involved in the collusion for bogus loans from BBC in the mid-1990s. With a new lease of life from Thaksin, however, his media group’s soured loans have been revived, and the group has received fresh credit from state-owned Krung Thai Bank. He also has received lucrative contracts to operate programs on state-run television.
So even though this snippet from Chulalongkorn professor Thitinant Pongsudhirak now looks ironic at best and ridiculous at worst, he could still insist that he was right. Like the (faux) Marxists he was criticizing who claimed vindication in both economic booms and busts, Khun Thitinant could muddle on with his criticism of the “nationalist and populist” Thaksin no matter how many “unsavory elements”, to use the professor’s word, like Sondhi, Prachai Leophairatana and Sanoh Thienthong have noisily turned against the premier. Is he — again, like the (faux) Marxists — a “four legs good, two legs better” type? We soon shall see.
On the contrary, as a believer of Occam’s razor, I can more than sufficiently explain Sondhi’s disaffection with Thaksin simply with his public persona: a loose cannon whose instincts are against everything the Thaksin government stands for.
Here’s a man who was making apologia for the Beslan hostage takers as the outrage was unfolding, presumably because he saw Russia as part of the hated “West”. His lifetime goal is naturally to be “the first Asian to get up and fight the Western press.” (While often criticizing the current Western-dominated international media myself, I do not wish it to be replaced by an insidious propagandist who happens to have been born on the same continent as I was). Making similar apologia for insurgents in Thailand’s South, he warned against the obviously greater menace of a “superpower’s” interference in the country. (Apparently the said superpower doesn’t have enough on its plate already in Iraq and Afghanistan.) He claimed to see a declaration of war against Islam in Bush’s acceptance speech at the Republican Convention. In the tsunami’s aftermath, he extolled the wisdom of beaching whales and suggested promoting that to the exalted status of “folk wisdom” (I can’t find that page now thanks to Manager.co.th’s lack of search function, but scroll down this page for another example of Sondhi’s “alternative” quackery).
He is, in other words, cut from the exact same mold as the Thaksin-bashing “academics” and NGOs. The mystery here isn’t why he turned against Thaksin, but rather why he waited so long to do so.
update Oh là là! I’ve been Pantip’ed.
ขอต้อนรับชาว panthip.com ทุกท่าน. ถ้าอยากอ่านเรื่องคดีล้มละลายของคุณสนธิ ลิ้มทองกุล ต่อ โปรดดูข้อมูลที่ (Dissident) Post Staffer ขุดขึ้นมาได้ข้างล่างและใน ความเห็นใต้โพสต์ Sondhi Limthongkul in the Nation. และถ้าชอบอ่านภาษาไทยมากกว่า ขอเชิญอ่าน “C-130 กับน้องทักษิณ” และ “ช้าก่อน กรณ์” ด้วย.
« A right royal hatchet job | Main | Sondhi Limthongkul in The Nation »
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- post staffer 28.11.05
Never thought I would thank the Nation newspaper for anything, until I came across this little gem from 2002.
The last part of a four-part series, it looks at the collapse of Sonthi’s M Group holding company. I would love to read the other parts, but the links seem to have died. Never mind: this gives you a clear picture of what the guy was like.
Love the bit where he urges fellow Thais to stop repaying debts to foreigners. Patriotic to the last. Thai-owned banks had just as much trouble getting money out of Sonthi. They didn’t have to be foreign owned!
Later I will post here about other documents which Google has obligingly coughed up, relating to the collapse of his company.
Oh, and did I remember to say ‘Thank you’ to the Nation?
At his financial peak, Thai media magnate Sondhi Limthongkul had all the accoutrements of a successful Asian tycoon.
Sitting atop his carefully diversified global conglomerate, Sondhi was often seen escorting Chinese screen goddess Gong Li.
His ambitious vision was to move into new markets and buy up the publications there. When he didn’t like the publications on offer, he simply started his own.
His empire, built on deals, promissory notes and predictions of exponential economic growth, also included a wide range of non-media businesses.
He led a project for the first satellite ever to be launched over Laos; he owned a hotel in China’s Yunnan province, ran a cement factory in Vietnam, and set up a regional business conference company.
Building on his domestic media success, Sondhi started a Hong Kong-based regional business magazine, Asia Inc; bought up a California lifestyle magazine, Buzz; launched a Bangkok-based regional newspaper, Asia Times; and tied in with numerous specialised regional titles, such as the Singapore-based Asian Dentist.
Managed from his tastefully restored, colonial-style headquarters along the Chao Phraya River, Sondhi’s businesses often seemed to have no link or logic beyond his ownership or control.
Riding on Thailand’s dramatic economic boom, everything Sondhi touched seemed to turn to gold. When people questioned how he could raise so much money so fast, he brushed off the queries by replying: “I am just a journalist who got lucky.”
Looking now at Sondhi’s Hong Kong-based international empire, his claim of relying on luck, which faltered ahead of Asia’s regional financial crisis in 1997, appears only too true.
After registering his first Hong Kong company, Manager International Company, in 1990, Sondhi’s empire picked up pace and scope. Within a few years he was registering up to four new companies a year and assigning them increasingly expansive names. M China International soon joined Asia Initiatives and Asia Network Publications. By 1995, Sondhi’s international empire included a dozen companies registered in Hong Kong alone.
Like many Asian tycoons, Sondhi wove a complex web of companies that allowed him to exert maximum control as indirectly as possible.
He accomplished this through a series of cross-shareholdings.
Sondhi himself usually kept few direct holdings in any of the companies, but ultimately was in control through his ownership of the holding companies. These holding companies included his favourite, M Group, and other holding companies registered in the British Virgin Islands.
His two-year attempt to run Asia Times, a regional daily newspaper, is a good example of this structure.
Sondhi, like several other M Group executives, only owned a token amount of the newspaper’s stock. The bulk of the company was owned by Manager International, which was, in turn, mostly owned by the M Group.
Such structures offer many benefits, including minimal taxation and maximum protection in case of financial difficulties. To their chagrin, creditors and former employees of Asia Times quickly discovered how easily this structure allowed Sondhi to distance himself from personal responsibility when the organisation which he had sworn was his personal dream collapsed.
By 1996, cracks began to appear in the restoration work of Sondhi’s sprawling colonial-era headquarters and financial strains began to weigh on his empire. Employees in many Sondhi-linked companies faced delayed salary payments and suppliers often received little more than empty promises.
Using the complex structure of the international cross-holdings, Sondhi fed those owed money with the refrain: “The money is in the pipeline, it just has to work its way through the system over to you.”
When the money finally ran out, Sondhi’s international empire ended with a whimper, not a bang.
The Lao satellite’s base station along the Mekong river was unceremoniously abandoned; his Hong Kong-based flagship magazine, Asia Inc, was bought out by staff, and Asian Advertising and Marketing was purchased by a foreign partner.
Sondhi himself took a strong stance on debt owed to foreigners, urging fellow Thai debtors to stop repaying foreign debt.
Under Hong Kong’s strict legal system, his companies began to wind up at a quick pace, with three companies facing liquidation in 2000 and 2001. This contrasts with Thailand, where company offices remained open for months after business operations had ceased.
Nonetheless, while creditors in many countries laid claim on Sondhi’s money, some of his lesser-known overseas assets appeared untouched by the collapse of his empire.
A former manager of Lijiang’s Grand Hotel in Yunnan Province said Sondhi retained his stake in the property at least through 1999.
Other Hong Kong-registered companies in which Sondhi is a director remain active, including Kingstrike Limited, M China International Limited and Four S Corporation Limited.
Now Sondhi’s only international profile is the mysterious website of his former regional newspaper, Asia Times. The paper ceased publication long ago, but the publication’s website is still regularly updated.
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- post staffer 28.11.05
Good news! Someone has started a wiki on the Thai media, and who owns or controls it: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_in_Thailand).
Started just this week, on the basis of a terrific conversation about media ownership here: link.
Useful stuff, given the fact that TV ownership in particular reads like a who’s who in Thai politics. Think satellites/TV concessions, think Thaksin’s cabinet, and of course Thaksin himself.
The main players in the growing cable and satellite TV market (where all the action is) are UBC, Thai TV (TTV) and Sondhi’s ASTV. See the wiki for the differences between CATV (cable TV), MMDS (wireless cable) and satellite TV.
Why was the Public Relations Department so keen to kick Sonthi’s show off ASTV last week?
One reason might be that the PRD is keen to offer a contract to another
company to broadcast in the provinces, the TTV network, in which the Nation Group owns a part share.One poster left this:
–I also received a press release that said TTV will be receiving a concession with the PM’s office and will be the only content provider for provincial cable. Now, this press release was given to me when PM’s office also supposedly took ASTV off the air.–
Here’s some interesting background, from Tettyan, the guy who started the wiki:
–Thailand’s regulation of the CATV market is a total mess. UBC (controlled by the CP group) holds a concession from MCOT to operate cable services in the greater Bangkok metropolitan area. Cable service in the provinces, however, are regulated by the PRD, in theory at least.
There are several dozen provincial CATV operators that are registered with the PRD, and almost as many that are black market. Because of the numerous illegal operators, it’s difficult the measure the audience for cable tv in Thailand, but some estimates claim that as many as 5 million Thais throughout the country have access.
To add to the whole mess, a company called TTV holds a contract from the PRD to operate an MMDS service in greater Bangkok. They’re allowed to offer up to 24 channels, though they currently only offer three.—
And on power plays in the TV industry? More from Tettyan:
–Look at the case of Nation TV (part of the Nation Group, not big fans of Thaksin). They originally started their 24-hour news channel 5 years ago, airing on UBC. Their tough, hard-hitting reporting became too much for UBC, which is controlled by the CP group, a staunch supporter of Thaksin. Under pressure, Nation TV left UBC two years ago and is now aired instead over the TTV network (of which it now owns 12%).
There’s no chance that you’ll ever see {Sonthi’s} ASTV on UBC, for the reasons I just described above. The channel is free-to-air over satellite, however, so if you’ve got the non-UBC dish, you should be able to see it.
Also, ASTV is (or has been?) broadcast over the provincial cable networks, and apparently was a big hit. It was really the first TV channel that could be seen in the provinces that took a critical line against the government (unlike Nation TV, which can only be seen in Bangkok and Chiang Mai). Maybe that’s why Thaksin felt so threatened, who knows?—
Now, let’s think of all those Thais living overseas. During his spat with Thaksin last week, Sonthi showed pictures of Thais in California waving flags in support, and watching his Thailand Weekly show over there. Why should this worry the government? Until now, the state has been the only voice broadcasting to Thai workers overseas. Sonthi’s ASTV is presenting a contrary, dissenting view. More from the thread:
–Channel 5 also runs Thai Global Network (TGN). Initally TGN was to provide news and information for foreign service workers and expatriate thais overseas. The programming was basically allocated equally among the Thai TV pool. This was the only available source of Thai programming for Thais overseas, until ASTV—
Finally, background on how the TTV venture is supposed to work:
–I have read about Nation’s new contract to supply content to provincial cable networks. As I understand it, it’s not a monpoly, but a joint venture between the cable networks and Nation, with the encouragement of the PRD.
Basically, the cable networks from all around the country will supply news content about their local regions and relay it to the Nation. Nation will then edit the content, compile it, and then relay the material to the various cable networks in the form of a 24-hour news channel. Sounds like a pretty neat idea. I wonder why the gov’t is willing to support Nation on this venture when their reporting has been very critical of the gov’t.–
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- JW 28.11.05
Tom
You don’t have a trackback option, but I have posted in response to your post here.
Also, thanks for the link about Sondhi’s alternative quackery.
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- post staffer 29.11.05
Now let’s take a closer look at Sonthi. He wants more transparency, right? He’s no paragon of transparency himself. Before the financial crisis, a company known as International Engineering guaranteed a huge loan for Sonthi.
Shortly before the crash, the company found itself in trouble after guaranteeing that loan, taken out by M Group (one of Sonthi’s holding companies), for the whopping sum of B1.2 billion.
Why would they do such a thing? M Group held a big share in IEC. Sonthi must have thrown his weight around. Or maybe it was all those alluring promises of an Asian-controlled media empire to rival any of those in the West.
INTERNATIONAL ENGINEERING: SET orders loan guarantee report
(Nov 1, 1999)
THE Stock Exchange of Thailand has asked International Engineering Plc (IEC) to clarify all transactions involved
in the Bt1.2 billion loan guarantee for M Group Plc and submit a report to the exchange by Wednesday.SET senior vice-president Patareeya Benjapholchai also said that IEC must settle the issue before Dec 3. The order has been issued after IEC’s board of directors failed to identify an official who could be held responsible for the
company’s financial losses following the loan guarantee for the M Group which borrowed Bt1.2 billion from Krung Thai
Bank in 1996. As of now, the company is yet to reveal any information involved in the issue.M Group, which is majority owned by media tycoon Sondhi Limthongkul, is a major shareholder in IEC. IEC reported
in a filing to the SET yesterday that its board members have agreed to pass on their rights to the shareholders to
decide the issue. The loan guarantee was made in 1996 but IEC never disclosed the information to the public. IEC now has to shoulder the financial burden from such a loan guarantee as the M Group has failed to honour the debt
obligations.Er…come again? Never disclosed to the public. Oh, fine. Sonthi, Mr Transparency himself, engineers a situation where this hapless company fails to disclose to the stock exchange, shareholders, or anyone else that it has guaranteed a loan so big that it could put it into bankruptcy should the borrower default.
The next chapter:
M GROUP: Assets to go into receivership
(March 14, 2000)
The Central Bankruptcy Court yesterday ordered the assets of media tycoon Sondhi Limthongkul into receivership in a
bankruptcy case filed by Siam City Bank.The court also dismissed a suit against M Group for procedural violations. Siam City Bank filed a bankruptcy suit against M Group and Mr Sondhi on Nov 1, 1999, for
failure to repay a bond of 150 million baht. The bond, issued by M Group and guaranteed by Mr Sondhi, was purchased by Siam City Credit in April 1995, with a coupon rate set at minimum lending rates plus one percentage point.Siam City Bank purchased the bond from Siam City Credit. M Group failed to pay the principal when the bond matured,
despite two separate efforts to call in the debt. The court heard testimony from Mr Sondhi last week. Mr Sondhi said a bankruptcy ruling would have a severe impact on efforts to restructure debt for Manager Media Group, publisher of
Manager Daily and a subsidiary of M Group.He said he did have the means to repay the bonds, since under the restructuring plan he would receive shares in Manager Media Group after five years.
The court ruled yesterday that Mr Sondhi had not demonstrated efforts to settle his debt and had failed to present sufficient cause why the borrower should not be declared bankrupt.
For M Group, the court dismissed the bankruptcy suit filed by Siam City Bank, ruling that the bank had failed to
follow procedures set under the bankruptcy code where pledged collateral had to be valued first. Mr Sondhi declined to comment on the court ruling.The ruling is certain to have an impact on the rehabilitation plan for Manager Media Group. One official at the Legal Execution Department said the ruling meant that Mr Sondhi lacked the credentials to be a planner for
the rehabilitation of the company. Creditors of Manager Media Group would be called to select a new planner for the
firm.Mr Sondhi built up a media empire in the mid-1990s which counted dozens of publications, including Asia Inc and Asia
Times, aimed at servicing the entire region, but his rapid expansion led to a massive buildup which proved to be his
downfall, with hundreds of journalists laid off and numerous publications closed during the economic crisis.Mr Sondhi last year moved to downsize operations, filing suit against four firms within the group. Express Printing
Co, a subsidiary of Eastern Printing Co, a company within the M Group, filed suit against Manager Information Service, Ibis Publishing, Asia Network Publication and New Generation Publishing. The court has ruled the assets of the four firms into receivership. (Bangkok Post 11-March-2000)Sonthi files suit against – wait for this, I’m still getting it – four firms within the same group of companies he created. Oy vey! This cannot go on. And nor did it.
M GROUP: Bankruptcy action filed against it for non-payment
Siam City Bank has filed a bankruptcy suit against former media magnate Sondhi Limthongkul and the M Group for the non-payment of debts worth Bt141 million.
In the suit to the Bankruptcy Court, the bank asked that the court rule both defendants as a bankrupt person and
entity, respectively, as they have failed to honour a transferable note with guarantee worth Bt150 million.The M Group issued the bond, while Sondhi guaranteed it. Siam City Bank claimed that the bond, which paid an
interest rate at the minimum lending rate plus 1 per cent, was due for redemption on April 19, 1997.The bank said the bond was transferred to it from subsidiaries Siam City Credit Finance and Securities Co and
SCF Finance and Securities, both of which are now defunct
companies. Sondhi had agreed as guarantor that if the M Group failed to honour the redemption of its bond, he would take the responsibility as co-debtor.Siam City Bank said that on the date of maturity, April 19, 1997, the M Group failed to redeem its bond and the company ignored the bank’s request to repay both principal and interest. This forced the bank to try to reclaim the money from Sondhi, who also ignored the request. The bank said on
two occasions, both M Group and Sondhi failed to respond to requests for repayment of a total of Bt141 million.The Bankruptcy Court agreed to take the case into deliberation and set today as the appointment date for a
hearing. (The Nation 02-Nov-1999)—Let’s take that again. Company issues bond. Investors take it up. Due date arrives, company fails to redeem bond. Bank takes on obligation, calls in debt. Sonthi ignores bank - it’s someone else’s money, after all – not once, but twice.
What do we call a guy who can’t live within his means? Reckless. That’s bad enough.
What do we call a guy who (we aver, m’lord) probably knew from the outset he could not deliver on what he promised?
ไม่เจียมตัวเลย - in short, a c@nt.
Now, a look at the claptrap which Asia which spinning about itself around the time of the crash. I recall reading this then, and consistently failing to understand the concept of ‘Asian values’.
Debt is debt, especially if you are borrowing from Ma and Pa Kettle, whichever country they live in. From Radio Australia (and you might even get audio, from this link):
From the mid 1960s, few regions in the world displayed the political stability of Southeast Asia. Several ASEAN countries experienced rapid economic growth and an expanding middle class. In these politically authoritarian but economically dynamic states, the media often conformed to the state’s expectations. Doctrines such as Asian values were sometimes invoked to support this and to argue for the inappropriateness of Western notions of freedom of the press. In the aftermath of the Asian financial crisis, ‘the Asian way’ has been down-played.
REPORTER : More than one million people are expected to lose their jobs this year as Thailand’s economy faces up to its worst economic downturn in more than fifty years. Worker frustration has seen the middle class take to the streets calling on Thailand’s Prime Minister to resign. Southeast Asia correspondent Ginny Stein prepared this report.
Once a leading Asian tiger economy with ten per cent growth over much of the past decade the new middle class high growth rates created is now hurting.
Before the regional financial crisis began in 1997, Thailand and other ‘tiger economies’ in Asia experienced rates of economic growth that were unprecedented in world history.Glen Lewis is Associate Professor of Communications at the University of Canberra.
‘After about the mid 1980’s Thailand became one of the fastest growing economies in the world. It had something like a ten per cent annual growth rate for a period of ten or twelve years, so you had this enormous Thai boom that developed from the mid 1980’s.’
As Glen Lewis explains, the media was an integral part of Thailand’s boom and subsequent bust.
‘The media had become big business.
The best example of this is what was known as the ‘M Group’, the Manager Group which was owned and directed by a prominent Sino/Thai businessman called Sondhi Limthongkul, and Sondhi had mega ambitions to make Thailand a regional media hub of southeast Asia. He was planning to put up satellite with the Lao Government which would challenge the monopoly of satellite distribution in Thailand which was otherwise controlled by the Shinawatra group.‘Shinawatra enriched himself because of his lucrative government connections which enabled him to launch three communication satellites in the mid 1990s. Shinawatra also had the largest and most profitable cell phone licence with his AIS (Advanced Information Services) company and Shinawatra had also found pay television as far back as 1989.
‘We got pay television in Australia I think in 1994/1995, Thailand had it in 1989 and Shinawatra benefited from that, so the boom in the media was very much part of the problem.
‘As the Thai financial crisis emerged about 1997 - it had become very much a part of the boom - you had very few journalists who were prepared to write critically about the various financial practices in Thailand that had become increasingly suspect, so journalists were implicated in the boom and then they suffered enormously because some of them were the first to lose their jobs and there were literally thousands of journalists who lost their jobs and Sondhi’s M Group, the Management Group, for which it had such great hopes, went bankrupt.’
Finally, let’s take a look at what happened to all those journalists who lost their jobs when Sonthi’s empire went belly up.
Hey, what’s the beef, you might ask. Well, maybe this aspiring media mogul of the East promised more than he could deliver…and maybe he knew it, well before anyone else did.
From the American Journalism Review.
Heard enough?Hard Times for Thai Journalists
Manit Phuriwattakij starts rolling out the dough for the next day’s dumplings by mid-afternoon. He and his wife work in their tiny kitchen until midnight, shaping and filling with meat or bean curd paste hundreds of their homemade ‘salapao.’
In the morning, the 56-year-old news photographer and his wife sell the fried dumplings that have become an essential part of their livelihood since he was laid off last year by the Bangkok Post. After two meal shifts—breakfast and lunch—Manit is back in the kitchen by 2:30 p.m. making the next day’s fare. The average day’s proceeds of $10 barely cover costs, but help to pay the couple’s rent.
‘It’s very difficult,’ Manit, a photojournalist for three decades, says outside the Bangkok headquarters of the Journalists Association of Thailand. The association operates a weekly flea market where dozens of unemployed Thai journalists sell food, used clothing, trinkets and crafts.
More than 3,000 Thai journalists and other media employees have lost their jobs since the economic crisis hit this Southeast Asian country more than a year and a half ago. Although there have been signs that Thailand’s crisis may be easing, the slump has left an indelible mark on the country’s media, once among Asia’s healthiest.
After years of unbridled expansion, Thailand’s newspapers, magazines and television news operations have been forced into a sobering downsizing that may continue long after the country’s economy recovers.
Hardest hit have been those Thai newspapers that were part of companies investing in property development and other vulnerable areas of the economy. One was the Manager Group, run by the flamboyant media entrepreneur Sondhi Limthongkul.
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- JW 29.11.05
Today’s The Nation has an article speculating about what has turned Sondhi against Thaksin
The honeymoon quickly ended as a faction in the ruling Thai Rak Thai Party questioned Sondhi presence in state-run media and forced him out. Airtime from MCOT was running out and the channel 11 News One slot was ruled irregular.
Sondhi’s fondness for the government was wearing thin and finally torn when his close associate Viroj, former chief of Pratara Finance who fed Sondhi’s business before 1997 crisis, failed to get a second term as president of KTB. Sondhi has been sniping at Thaksin ever since.
While it is all speculation unless Sondhi specifically comes out and confirms it, to me it does sound plausible. As I have said previously Sondhi’s conflict with Thaksin is personal.
The articles continues and starts to question Sondhi’s motives
He has never told the public that business interest was the driving force in his movement against Thaksin. In stead, he used royalist ideology as a moral high ground from which to accuse Thaksin of lese majeste.
…
The ultimate goal of this political movement is to overthrow Thaksin administration, as well as its allies in parliament and independent bodies.
…
But now that the mass movement has gained momentum, Sondhi will find it is a tiger that he cannot get off so easily. He needs to carry on until either the end of Thaksin’s regime or the collapse of his media empire. The game will not be over quickly as his opponent has everything, including power and moneyObviously, everything will turn on how many people show up on Dec 9. I predict Sondhi won’t get the numbers. If Sondhi doesn’t get the numbers it could spell the end of his “movement” and it could also be the end of Sondhi.
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- Tom Vamvanij 29.11.05
JW:
Obviously, everything will turn on how many people show up on Dec 9. I predict Sondhi won’t get the numbers. If Sondhi doesn’t get the numbers it could spell the end of his “movement” and it could also be the end of Sondhi.
The key moment may very well come a couple of days before that, on December 4. Fingers crossed.
I disagree with The Nation that Sondhi will find it hard to climb down, as he’s riding a kitten, not a tiger. The vast majority of his supporters are personality cultists who will follow wherever he takes them (a few declare that much in their comments on Manager Online). The rest, being opportunists, will move on without rancor, just the same way they moved in behind him.
And of course, I’m disgusted by the “Thaksin’s regime” bit.
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- post staffer 29.11.05
The Nation mentions Krung Thai Bank’s B1.2b loan to Sonthi. So too does the bankrupt.com article above.
In Nov 1999, the stock exchange told International Engineering (again, see the Nation article and the report above) to explain the loan, after ‘IEC’s board of directors failed to identify an official who could be held responsible for the
company’s financial losses following the loan guarantee for the M Group which borrowed Bt1.2 billion from Krung Thai
Bank in 1996.’Intriguing stuff. Sonthi was a major shareholder in IE. Sounds like companies in his group were busy guaranteeing loans for each other.
A bit of history, from the now-famous Asia Week article on Sonthi which ran just before the launch of the ill-fated Asia Times:
In 1988, Sondhi created the Manager Company for his publications and set up a monthly English-language magazine, Manager, a year later. In 1990 he started Phujadkarn daily. That year he listed the Manager Company on the Stock Exchange of Thailand and used the money to expand, establishing Eastern Printing Company, one of the country’s largest commercial plants. Manager Information Services came next, followed by Direct Marketing Services and the acquisition of International Engineering Co. (IEC). In 1992, Sondhi formed the M. Group, bringing all the companies under one umbrella.
Prescient observation from the same article:
Like some other Thai businesses, though, transparency does not seem to be a hallmark of the M. Group’s finances. Analysts say his companies are structured to be leveraged one against the other and it’s difficult to tell what’s going on where. One analyst said he wasn’t recommending Manager Media Group stock even though it is virtually at an all-time low.
Still, Sondhi has attracted investors by entering sectors that are the darlings of the Thai economy. The feeling among financial analysts is that his projects start off with an explosion, attracting a lot of investment and interest. But after the glow disappears, the day-to-day operations turn out to be weak.
From the Nation article:
The reborn Sondhi quickly got stronger with support from major players in Thaksin’s government, namely chief adviser Pansak Vinyaratn
Here’s more on Pansak, taken from the Asia Week piece. The pair go way back, to their time at the London School of Economics in the 1960s.
Asia Times editor-in-chief Pansak Vinyaratn, 53, says his paper will thrive because it provides an alternative. ‘Asia Times is not an American-attitude newspaper,’ he says dismissively. Still, management seems to see The Asian Wall Street Journal as the principal foe.
One Bangkok-based analyst who tracks print media says advertising revenues for a niche-market regional daily don’t come easily.
For Pansak, pride is involved. He wants the venture ‘to prove that a regional paper of some quality can be produced out of Asia.’
A former prime-ministerial adviser to Chatichai Choonhavan, Pansak was the founder and editor of the influential Jaturat (Square) magazine in the 1970s. He is also a longtime friend of Sondhi - which may help explain his optimism.
‘I hope we sell in (the Indian hill station of) Simla. Wouldn’t it be lovely to have tea and read Asia Times,’ the editor-in-chief says with a laugh and a hint of an English accent, partly a legacy of a stint at the London School of Economics in the 1960s.
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- JW 29.11.05
I disagree with The Nation that Sondhi will find it hard to climb down, as he’s riding a kitten, not a tiger.
I disagree (well, at least I disagree with what I think you are saying). To me, Sondhi is really taking his conflict with Thaksin too personally. This is why Sondhi reminds me of Prachai, he seems so focused on revenge that he has become irrational and illogical. This is why I doubt Sondhi will back down even if it become obvious he won’t be able to obtain what he wants. Sondhi will either sink or swim. Let’s just hope he sinks.