• Struggling for survival
• 'Washed up' fishermen turn carpenter and build their own boats
• 'Tsunami village' rises from rubble
• Inspired by Church aid, sea gypsies turn to Christ
• Foreign aid crucial
• Body ID center looks future
• Shoddy housing doesn't make a home
• Outside volunteer carves new career in housing
• Counting the costs to the environment
• Underwater tourist trails
• Turtle hatchery at risk after waves
• Where the money went
• Covered for everything but the wave
• Corporations learn that caring counts
• Starting again from scratch
• Swedish survivor gains perspective after wave 'turned my life upside-down'
• Reasons to smile
• Justice will prevail, investor believes
• Courage and resilience ease personal pain
• Help wanted
• Second chance to get it right
• Tide turns on tourist demographics in Khao Lak
• Light on the horizon
• One day at a time
• Widows and orphans left out in the cold
• Art for the heart
SUSTAINING LIFE
Justice will prevail, investor believes
Former bankruptcy judge hasn't lost his taste for business, but he won't be counting on banks
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| Mr Pichai shows off the Rawai beach property that he intends to turn into a resort. ''They need to open their minds,'' he says of critics who think doing business is a step down in life. |
Pichai Niltongkham points to an old Bodhi tree on tranquil Rawai beach and says, ''Queen Rambhai Barni of the seventh reign loved to sit there under that tree when she visited Phuket. It's such a charming story, isn't it?''
It's late afternoon and Mr Pichai is proudly showing his visitor a 100-year-old house that he wants to turn into a boutique resort.
He has the air of a businessman who is full of energy and imagination, and not the chief bankruptcy judge he used to be.
During his four-year term in the Central Bankruptcy Court, he made his mark as the man who presided over the Byzantine debt restructuring case of Thai Petrochemical Industry Plc (TPI).
It's ironic, then, to see a chief justice, who is used to making careful decisions about the fates of ailing firms, preoccupied with having to restructure his own company's debt.
But he's just one of many businessmen who plunged into a nightmare last year. His story is particularly poignant - his 130-million baht Khao Lak Amandalay Resort opened on Christmas Eve and all 79 luxury villas were swept into the sea two days later.
The killer wave changed the veteran justice into a shadow of his former self.
In the first two months after the tsunami, he sought state assistance, including a five-year debt moratorium, low-interest loans and promotional privileges from the Board of Investment. But no help came, and he admits he became depressed.
''They discouraged me a lot since I kept telling them again and again that the best solution would be to give me the money to rebuild the resort, then I could make money to repay my debts. But even then they were still reluctant because they were afraid a tsunami would happen again. What's wrong with them?'' he asked.
Most of Thai bankers demand debtors repay every single baht of debt, without any sympathy, he said.
''They just don't care about the future of debtors' businesses, that is what I have learned from in court,'' he said.
But he got over it and began to look ahead, which he attributed to his experience as a judge.
He said the businessmen whom he had met in court taught him about good business planning and good opportunities.
He now believes he has invested in another project - a low-cost property in Khao Lak - at the right time.
And because he has done so, Mr Pichai can tell the bankers, ''If you really need your money back, just sell the land, I will still gain some profit.''
He has been a slippery catch for bankers, because one of the lessons he has learned from court is to decline loan offers that come with the condition he put all his properties up as collateral.
''A lot of businessmen's enterprises collapsed easily because they put their properties together as collateral for only one project, even though they earned enough for funding. So they lost all their properties when only one project was down.
''But I don't think they will sell my land, if they are smart enough, they will realise its potential, and they could earn much more from me.''
Among the hundreds of cases he has dealt with, TPI has given him the most invaluable lessons. ''I learned about all aspects of bankruptcy from this case. It forces you to read between the lines and dig deep into all sections from the first to the last.''
While TPI gave him immense professional satisfaction, he also faced strong criticism and there was even talk in some quarters of hidden deals.
''That was the worst defamation in my life. TPI is my masterpiece, I sacrificed myself to the case in a bid to make it run smoothly for all parties. But you know how it is - everyone was only worried about his own benefits and people were ready to defame other people who didn't favour them,'' he said.
Mr Pichai also faced criticism for going into business because it was considered a step down from being a judge.
But he swept these criticisms aside and decided to continue to live life the way he wanted.
''They need to open their minds. I'm not a stranger to business since I was raised by a parent who ran a lot of businesses, in fisheries and trucks.''
In fact, the 50-year-old legal expert set up his first business when he was a law student, 28 years ago.
''It was a big opportunity,'' he recalled. ''See how many law students there are in the country? I thought that if only 60% of students buy my textbooks, how much money could I earn? So I did it, and now my company holds 60% of the market share, leading the law textbooks market,'' said Mr Pichai, who currently holds a post as an Appeal Court justice.
He handed his textbook business over to his two daughters after it became well-established. Today, he is focusing on the hospitality business, despite the collapse of his first resort, Khao Lak Amandalay.
''This is my first big business investment, but it won't be the last one. I will continue to fight,'' Mr Pichai said.
The Institute for Small and Medium Enterprises Development (Ismed), an Industry Ministry agency, agreed to enter into a joint venture in the Amandalay, with 55 million baht, but the project needs 50 million baht in bank funding to complete the rebuilding work.
''I'm waiting for loans from these banks, I believe that they will come by the end of this year,'' he says.
The Khao Lak project will need to adjust its layout in future. It will have fewer villas in order to reduce risk. ''This is one lesson from the wave as well.''
Undeterred, Mr Pichai is also starting two new projects, including a 30-room hip hotel on the bank of the Ping River in Chiang Mai province and a boutique resort in Phuket.
The project in the North came first, a way to -heal the scars from the wave.
''You know, I'm avoiding the giant wave by moving to high land but Chiang Mai tourism this year is critical because of floods,'' he said, laughing at his own fate.
Now only four of the 30 rooms have been completed, as he could only afford four million baht. The first four rooms will be ready for guests by the end of this year, and building work for the remaining 26 rooms will start next year. Some 30 million baht in project finance has been provided by the SME Bank.
The next project, a six-rai boutique resort on Rawai beach, will require an investment of 20-30 million baht, and he plans to begin work by the end of 2006 after the completion of the Chiang Mai venture.
He isn't concerned that the plot for his boutique -project on Rawai beach was affected by the killer wave.
''My property was not affected. You see this old house? The wave just came to the front step because there are two small islands to help break the wave.''
He plans to renovate the house, keeping the historic architecture, and plans to stay here when he retires.
His hospitality business will secure his family's future as his wife is due to give birth soon.
He also plans to keep a low profile as a justice over the next 10 years because he says he is too tired to fight for a higher position.
''Chief justice of a small bankruptcy court is the peak for me. I was proud of the one hundred cases I handled, as they helped our economy recover.''
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