Recovery by corporates hailed as sign of resilience 

Many shareholders who lost major stakes in their businesses to foreign companies during the crisis are now back in the driver’s seat. 
For example, TCC Group is owned by beverage tycoon Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi, who lost First Bangkok City Bank, which merged with Krungthai Bank in 1998. 
TCC Group now has holdings in the beverage, property, and agriculture sectors. The group also took over Singapore-based Fraser and Neave, as well as acquiring a major stake in Big C Supercenter.
Central Group, which had to sell some of its stake in Big C to France-based Casino Guichard Perrachon in 1999, now has successfully expanded its investment overseas, such as in Italy, Germany and Vietnam. 
Charoen Pokphand Group had to sell some of its stake in Ek-Chai Distribution System Co, which operated Lotus stores before 1997, to UK-based Tesco Group in 1998 when CP Group faced high debts after the economic crisis. But since then the group has recovered to the extent of taking over Siam Makro. It also now has interests in the agriculture, telecom and entertainment sectors.
Siam Cement Group had to suspend its investment overseas after the economic crisis and had to restructure its foreign debt when the baht was devalued from 25 per US dollar to 55. Now, SCG is a flourishing Thai conglomerate that has expanded across the Asean region in the construction-materials, chemical, and paper industries.

Property healthier
Meanwhile, the property sector, which had been experiencing a bubble until it burst in 1997, now boasts annual financial results far healthier than 20 years ago. Most real-estate firms have kept their debt-to-equity ratios from going over 2:1, after many had ratios of more than 5:1 before the 1997 crisis. 
They have not managed this more disciplined performance on their own, however. The commercial banks now are much more cautious with mortgage lending, rejecting loan applications by would-be homebuyers unlikely to be able to keep up their payments. 
“The Thai corporate sector became more financially healthy after the economic crisis of 1997, as most of them learned how to run a business when facing the crisis,” said Kasemsit Pathomsak, deputy secretary-general of the Thai Chamber of Commerce and Board of Trade of Thailand. “Most of them keep more cash [on hand] and also borrow less from overseas because they are concerned about currency fluctuations.” 
The chamber has 90,000 members, 30 per cent of which are big corporates and the rest small and medium-sized enterprises.