A lady leaves a Makro shop, run by Siam Makro Pcl, in Bangkok, Thailand, on Tuesday, April … [+] 23, 2013. Professional Photographer: Brent Lewin/Bloomberg
CP Axtra— the retail arm of billionaire Dhanin Chearavanont and his household’s Charoen Pokphand Group– will combine with CP Group’s Ek-Chai Distribution as Thailand’s greatest corporation rearranges its retail services to streamline the group’s structure and assistance future development chances.
Under the strategy, CP Axtra will presume direct ownership of Ek-Chai Distribution, operator of Lotus’s Thailand retail chain, for 7.7 billion baht ($215 million), the business stated in a regulative submitting on Wednesday.
The mix of CP Axtra’s over 160 Makro shops throughout 9 nations with the more than 2,500 Lotus’s areas in Thailand and Malaysia is anticipated to improve the group’s operating effectiveness.
“Once finished, the relocation needs to boost performance, organization versatility, and produce some sort of synergies for the group,” stated Rakpong Chaisuparakul, strategist at KGI Securities (Thailand). “it will need some time to execute this service restructuring and I do not anticipate any considerable advantage or synergy being emerged in the brief run.”
As part of the restructuring strategy, CP Axtra will combine with Ek-Chai into a brand-new business that will ultimately change CP Axtra’s listing status on the Thai bourse. Upon conclusion of the merger by the 4th quarter of this year, the holding company Lotus’s Stores (Thailand), which presently owns Ek-Chai Distribution, would be liquified. CP Axtra’s moms and dad, CP All, is the biggest corner store operator in Thailand.
CP Group– among the world’s biggest manufacturers of animal feed and animals– was established by Dhanin’s late dad Chia Ek Chor and his bro Choncharoen Chiaravanont in 1921 as a store selling seeds imported from China to Thai farmers. With a net worth of $34 billion, Dhanin and his bros are the wealthiest in Thailand.
Dhanin– who got the Malcolm S. Forbes Lifetime Achievement Award at the Forbes Global CEO Conference in September 2023– was chairman of the business for 48 years till he stepped down in 2017. His oldest kid, Soopakij, and the youngest, Suphachai, are CP’s chairman and CEO, respectively. The business has actually diversified for many years into brand-new services such as retail, telecommunication, financing, pharmaceuticals, residential or commercial property, car and e-commerce. It likewise has stakes in Chinese insurance company Ping An, Hong Kong corporation CITIC and Thailand’s biggest smart phone operator True Corp.