JULY 2016 FORBES ASIA | 23“A record ratio of MahaNakhon buyers are foreigners,”
says Bastien Forzy, whose Sense Property Group brokers
deals for foreign investors. “Some of our clients were first
spooked by MahaNakhon’s high prices, but now they are
coming back to it as one of their first choices,” he says, noting
that Asian buyers often pay big premiums for new freehold
condos. “Demand will only increase. Rich people are more
and more numerous.” But back at the time of MahaNakhon’s
official launch in May 2009, “very few were those who
believed in the project,” he recalls. “It was just too big, too
expensive, too architecturally different from other luxury
residences in Bangkok.”
Techakraisri’s dream began not long after the turn of the
millennium. Already well-known from the local celebrity
magazines that routinely featured him, he predicted that
wealthy buyers would pay up for Bangkok properties in the
right location, designed by the right architect and interior
decorator, with first-rate service and property management.
Plans for what became MahaNakhon took shape after he
set off on his own in 2003, rather than stay with his fam-
ily’s real estate company, L.P.N. Development, which aims
at the middle to lower-middle market. His father, Sumet, is
that outfit’s largest individual shareholder, and his mother,
Yupa, and her two siblings are board-level directors. In 2008
FORBES ASIA named L.P.N. to our annual roster of the best
listed companies in the Asia-Pacific region with less than
$1 billion in annual revenue.
Techakraisri’s first move was to pick a fellow jet-set-
ter, German architect Ole Scheeren, to design his tower.
Scheeren had risen to prominence as a Beijing celebrity
linked with local princelings during the construction of the
iconic CCTV building through Rem Koolhaas’ Office for
Metropolitan Architecture. Numerous delays intertwined
with the global financial crisis put off the ground-breaking
until 2011. Two years later Techakraisri’s move to take Pace
public was daring because the company had no earnings
potential in the short term. “Pace was in survival mode,” says
Asia Plus Securities’ Sony, who notes that MahaNakhon’s
sales at the time had stalled at 30%. “It needed to go public
because it needed the money.” The timing was unfortunate:
Street protests sent shares down 13% on day one.
Then in March 2014 Pace won a reprieve: It managed
to buy the land freehold; previously it had leased the land
underneath MahaNakhon. That nearly tripled the company’s
share price and unleashed the sluggish sales. Not only that;
Techakraisri also found a way to circumvent the 49% cap on
sales of apartments to foreigners—he included the hotel and
observation deck as part of the equation.
Bolstered by his twin wins and undeterred by red ink,
Techakraisri forged ahead. In 2014 he bought a U.S. chain
of food shops called Dean & DeLuca. It seemed like another
reckless move as the chain’s costs soon spiraled beyond
projections (see box, p. 22). “Pace was a very small company
doing larger-than-life projects,” recalls Sony. “There was so
much risk.” But then Techakraisri was encouraged by the
launch last December of the ASEAN Economic Commu-
nity, which might eventually unite a market of 600 million
consumers and allow the free movement of goods, services,
workers and capital among the ten countries in ASEAN.
He expects Bangkok to become the gateway to the com-
munity, the home base for a wave of senior executive expats
with business in Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and
Vietnam. Pace projects that within three years the number of
top-level managers in Bangkok will double, and in five years
quadruple. “The AEC is a long-term play,” he says. “This re-
gion is doing better than anywhere else, and when Bangkok
has a more stable government, it will be the center for the
East. Expats will live in Thailand and visit their factories in
the hinterlands.”
Landscope Thailand confirms that growing numbers of
expat executives use Bangkok as a base because of the lower
costs and easy access. MD Skevington notes a recent influx oftechnology-related business as well as the longstanding pres-
ence of Japanese companies that make Thailand a produc-
tion base. Bioplastics, biopharma and e-commerce outfits,
some with regional operations, are also coming, says Gerrit
Bouckaert at recruitment firm Robert Walters Thailand. And
investors applaud the lower baht, which makes property
seem like a bargain compared with Singapore, for instance,
where Ritz-Carlton Residences sell for five times more.
Still, property agents and outside consultants question
how many expats coming to Thailand can afford to rent or
buy superluxury units. Most expat packages would not cover
the cost of MahaNakhon, says consultant Daniel Giles at the
Thai office of Vriens & Partners. “It’s more likely that resi-
dents will be independently wealthy international finance
people who are not necessarily tied to operations and man-
agement in the region.” Adds CBRE’s Pathnadabutr, “Buyers
use the condos as second or third homes. The big expecta-
tion is on capital appreciation.”
Once the doors open at MahaNakhon and prospective
buyers can see the finished product, says Techakraisri, they
can expect a higher price tag. “It becomes an emotional sale.
When they see the view —and the residence, the sky bar, the
hotel—they will just want it.”
(Go to forbes.com/solil to read about the $12 billion family
that is landlord to Manhattan’s Madison Ave.)F“WHEN BANGKOK HAS A
MORE STABLE GOVERNMENT,
IT WILL BE THE CENTER FOR
THE EAST.”