Prachai group ousted from boards of IRPC
Prachai Leophairatana and his group have been removed from the boards of directors of IRPC's five subsidiaries after a vote by shareholders.
The extraordinary shareholders meeting also approved new sets of directors for all five companies. The number of directors has also been increased to 10 from between five and six, to welcome more experts on to the boards, said Chansin Treenuchagron, managing director of Thai ABS Co and IRPC Oil Co.
The other three subsidiaries are IRPC Polyol, IRPC Energy and Thai Polyurethane Industry. All are 99 per cent owned by IRPC.
The new lists of directors will be submitted to the registrar today, and the registration normally takes 15 days, Chansin said.
"Our major shareholder did invite minority shareholders to attend the meeting, but they did not show up. Despite the shareholders’ resolution, we will want the Administrative Court’s continued protection until the registration of new directors is complete. We just don’t know what will happen during the interval," he said.
The meeting followed the change of boards of directors on February 7 following a ruling of the Central Bankruptcy Court. This resulted in the reappearance of Prachai’s group, and caused confusion to clients and bankers as to who controls the subsidiaries.
Chansin said all subsidiaries would maintain all measures to protect their financial and trade transactions until the registration is completed.
Yesterday, IRPC also submitted an open letter to the commerce minister, the commerce permanent secretary and the director-general of the Business Development Department (the registrar) asking for speedy registration. It said the registration would serve as an example of good governance of Thai companies, to assure investors of transparency.
According to a source from IRPC, upon his return, Prachai introduced changes to the five subsidiaries. At a meeting with directors on his side on February 17, they approved changes in head offices and company logos. The resolution was sent to the registrar, who asked whether IRPC would protest against the resolution.
"It’s possible that he intended not to show up today [at the extraordinary shareholders meeting] because he is devising some plans to protest against the resolution," the source said.
IRPC said in its 2011 annual report that 13 legal disputes with the Leophairatana Group were pending, involving for example the auction of TPI Polene’s shares and lending to family-related business groups.
