Dr. Boon eyes construction firms

APC purchased for backdoor listing

Doctor-turned-property tycoon Boon Vanasin says he may take over three or four local construction companies after buying Advance Paint and Chemical Plc to use for a back-door listing. His group would spend 800-900 million baht on the acquisitions, said Dr Boon, the chairman of Rajthanee Realty Co.

''We are considering buying construction firms. It may be a takeover or buying shares in the stock market,'' said Dr Boon, who spent more than a decade in the United States.

''It's a consolidation. Small companies cannot survive and they have to merge with others.''

He declined to name the target acquisitions but said he was also interested in service industries, including hotels.

Local newspapers have reported that the listed contractor Christiani & Nielsen is among the targets.

As part of a plan for a back-door listing of his real estate companies, Dr Boon said he was spending 400-500 million baht on a 75% stake in the loss-making Advance Paint and Chemical (APC), which is currently in the non-performing sector of the Stock Exchange of Thailand.

Shares in the company were suspended in late 2005 for restructuring.

Dr Boon said a back-door listing would take less time than an initial public offering.

Rajthanee, which comprises seven companies with combined capital of more than three billion baht, plans to develop luxury housing and resorts on Koh Samui and Phuket. Last year, the company announced plans for a 10-billion-baht ''Arab Town'' in Bangkok to attract buyers from the Middle East. The project consists of a hotel, condominiums, an office building, shopping mall and a mosque.

Dr Boon, a former instructor at John Hopkins School of Medicine, made his fortune buying land in the United States and broadened his investment portfolios in stock markets in Europe, Japan and China. In Thailand, he set up Thonburi Hospital in 1976, which now has more than 20 branches.He said he planned to list Piyavate Hospital, of which he is chairman, in late 2008 and expected to raise about 500 million baht from the public share offer.

''Going public will be good for us in terms of tax,'' he said.

Foreign patients, mainly from the Middle East, now make up 40% of Piyavate Hospital's clients.
''Over the next five years, I expect. Thailand to earn about $4 billion, 150% more [from medical services]. ... For Piyavate, we are gearing up for the international market,'' he said.REUTERS.

Bangkok Post
Tuesday April 03, 2007