8.07-Manager bankrupt, by Pukky, this blog’s neutral business and economics analyst

The bankrupt man plans to save Thailand

The Thai courts ordered Manager, the publisher of Manager newspaper, into bankruptcy yesterday, as it has failed to return to health under the court supervised rehabilitation agreement, between creditors and owners, resulting an accumulation of 4,700 worth of debt.

Sondhi, the main owner of Manager newspaper, said he was pushing ahead, issuing the newspaper under a different but similar name, using Thai Day Dot Com, a company that operates ASTV, as the base for the publishing.

“I have sacrificed everything to bring justice to Thailand in fighting Thaksin…I don’t understand the courts because the creditors of Manager and the owners, have no problems. There is something unusual about this bankruptcy order,” Sondhi told a crowd at the PAD occupied government house last night, as some rally goers openly cried. PAD is a group of people fiercely against the former Thai PM of Thaksin that is lead by Sondhi to raid and occupy the Thai government offices, kicking out the government to go and work at the old Bangkok airport.

Under Thai strict publishing laws, a new newspaper must get police approval before publication, and it is unknown if Sondhi will have the police clearance or cares to get one according to the law.

Matichon, a local newspaper, had been running an expose of the Sondhi business empire for the last month, in a continuous series. In those reports, Matichon, question Sondhi of tax evasion.

The charges comes from the newspaper doing some simple calculation of the donations Sondhi has gotten in the past few years. The calculations, based on what Sondhi has said and on some published figures on Sondhi businesses, show a donation somewhere in the 200 to 300 million baht range. However, from investigating the Sondhi business empire, there were about 30 companies under Sondhi roof, with some registered in tax heaven countries.

However, most of the larger companies are loosing money and thus Matichon wonders where the donated money dissappeared to-thus Matichon asked if it was tax evasion or simply a siphoning the money away into a secret account somewhere.

Sondhi would later say that all the donation amounted to about 150 million baht with about 100 million spent so far. However, the true extent of the donation, could never independent be verified as the PAD keeps a close tabs on the donations as a carefully guarded secret. And because the PAD is a powerful street fighting force with a large group of supporters, no one dares to investigate the matter. Matichon expose of Sondhiis the result of a rift between the two as PAD guards roughted up Matichon’s women reporters.

The court orders to shut Manager down, is seen as an attempt to get some sense of order and accountability back into the financing of Thailand’s longest running protest in history.

The protest costs includes namely giving free food and water to protesters and the hiring of about 200 PAD guards. PAD also constructed a massive stage and roof to cover the immediate front of the stage area and it is uncertain if the PAD has to pay for electricity or not. The guards alone gets about 20,000 baht each a month and with about 200 guards, that comes to a hefty 4-5 million a month.

The government of Somchai, also yesterday, came out to say that from the government investigation into the occupied government house, about 100-200 million baht worth of direct damages has already been done on the government house as a result of the occupation. The Somchai government now wants the PAD to be responsible for the damage, when it eventually leaves the occupied government house.

Matichon question Sondhi and the PAD saying that while the PAD criticized Thaksin of using a complicated web structure of companies that involved tax heaven countries, it appears that in the financing of Sondhi own personal business, Sondhi also uses very much the same type of logic and structure. As a result of the rehabilitation program, several large banks now owners Manager along with Sondhi.

However, as Manager went on the attack of Thaksin, the newspaper got very emotional and rabid like in the language the newspaper use and according to many Thai press experts, eventually the use of very aggressive and strong words turned off many readers, who are less anti-Thaksin. The newspaper is also seen by many as nothing more than a propaganda arm of the PAD, and thus had lost much of its senses of objectivity.

Sondhi empire started about 15 years ago, that at its height had  several newspapers, including the English language Asia Times that was sold throughout Asia-in an attempt said by Sondhi then as a way for Asia to have its own voice instead of having to read the Asian Wall Street Journal. There was also the laying of the foundation in Laos for a satellite base, to be used for television broadcast all over Asia via Sondhi’s own satellite.

The empire went to pieces as the Thai economic bubble burst some 10 years ago, leaving Sondhi a shadow of his former self in business, where he turned political and went after Thaksin.