Thread: Conversations with Thaksin, Thailand's prime suspect

Originally Posted by DroversDog

successful business person.

Thaksin and his wife began several businesses while he was still in the police, including a silk shop, a movie theater, and an apartment building. All were failures and left him over 50 million baht in debt.


In 1982 he established ICSI; using his police contacts , he leased computers to government agencies with modest success.

However, later ventures in security systems (SOS) and public bus radio services (Bus Sound) all failed.

In 1989 he launched IBC, a cable television company. At that time, Thaksin had a very good relationship with Chalerm Yoobumrung the Minister of the Prime Minister Office who was in charge of Thai press and media. It is a question that remains unanswered whether Chalerm granted the right to Thaksin to establish IBC just to benefit his close friend, seeing that this project had been denied by the previous administration but instantly accepted a very short period after Chalerm came to office.

However, it turned out to lose money and he eventually merged this company with the CP Group's UTV.

But then things got better....

Advance Info Service was given a monopoly contract by his contacts in the military in 1986[41] and operates under GSM 900 frequency. AIS grew rapidly and became the largest mobile phone operator in Thailand. (Would have been hard *not* to succeed when you are given a monopoly!)

Then of course he entered politics and took full advantage of the 'opportunities' that provided

This is the profile of a business failure, not a success - without the contacts and the influence he would have got nowhere.