Jay Mart’s Hypergrowth Propels Founder Adisak Sukumvitaya To The Ranks Of Thailand’s 50 Richest

This story is a part of Forbes’ protection of Thailand’s Richest 2022. See the complete listing right here.

Adisak Sukumvitaya parlayed Jay Mart from a single retailer right into a tech-driven retailing and monetary companies group with a complete market cap of $6.5 billion. And he is nonetheless dreaming huge.

When Thailand’s inventory trade just lately rejigged its SET50 Index, an index of the largest corporations by market cap, Adisak Sukumvitaya emerged a winner. Admitted have been his flagship firm Jay Mart plus its debt assortment and administration unit JMT Community Providers, each among the many hottest Thai shares prior to now yr—up 54% and 74%, respectively—whereas the index fell greater than 3%. The double-entry was a seminal occasion for the Jay Mart founder and CEO, who opened his first store, promoting family home equipment, in 1989.

“For me, it’s an enormous reward in my entrepreneurial journey of 33 years,” says Adisak, 66, at Jay Home, his sprawling mansion in a gated enclave 30 kilometers from Bangkok’s central enterprise district. The partitions are adorned with work by native artists. Displayed extra discreetly are artworks by Adisak himself, who says he paints often to loosen up.

From his retailing roots, Adisak has grown that single retailer into the Jaymart group, with the listed Jay Mart as its flagship holding firm. Jay Mart has stakes in three publicly traded corporations and a clutch of privately held corporations. The corporate’s companies largely fall into three principal buckets: retail, finance and tech. They span the spectrum from distributing and retailing cell phones, IT merchandise and electrical home equipment to debt administration and assortment, monetary companies, espresso retailers and tech. Jaymart Cell sells cell phones by way of 200 shops throughout Thailand. Jay Mart’s finance arms supply client loans and non-life insurance coverage. Its tech unit J Ventures develops rising tech similar to AI, blockchain and massive information and is constructing a metaverse platform.

Community Impact

The listed Jay Mart holds stakes in quite a lot of companies.

Amid Thailand’s gradual financial restoration, Jay Mart produced a document 2021 internet revenue of two.5 billion baht ($71 million), a threefold rise from the earlier yr, on income of 12.3 billion baht. Jay Mart’s hovering shares propelled Adisak—who together with his spouse Yuvadee Pong-Acha, is a significant shareholder—into the ranks of the 50 richest with an estimated fortune of $835 million. Jay Mart and its related corporations—property developer JAS Asset, JMT Community and direct promoting agency Singer Thailand—have a mixed market cap of $6.5 billion.

“From small beginnings, Adisak has grown Jay Mart exponentially, constructing it by way of strategic acquisitions and partnerships,” says veteran banker Kongkiat Opaswongkarn, CEO, Asia Plus Securities, the lead funding financial institution for the group’s three IPOs. The agency additionally orchestrated Jay Mart’s 2015 acquisition of a 25% stake in Singer Thailand, the native unit of the storied American firm whose founder invented the stitching machine in 1850.

For the reason that begin of the pandemic, the tycoon has labored from house, doing board conferences on Zoom. Not solely does that save him the commute to Jaymart Constructing, the company headquarters, but it surely has compelled him, he says, to offer senior executives extra of a free hand. He’s now constructing an extension to his home with a convention room for conferences. “Working remotely fits me,” he declares.

Energy Level

Jay Mart’s internet revenue hit a document 2.5 billion baht final yr.

Adisak has saved making connections all through the pandemic. As Thailand’s banks struggled with rising nonperforming loans, Adisak noticed a possibility to spice up JMT Community’s enterprise and fashioned two joint ventures with Bangkok-based Kasikorn Financial institution for debt assortment and asset administration. He transformed finance arm J Fintech into KB J Capital, a client finance three way partnership with Korean bank card firm KB Kookmin Card. Jay Mart’s software program unit J Ventures bagged an funding from Japanese IT agency TIS. Adisak has just lately forayed into renewables with a partnership between listee Gunkul Dhumrongpiyawut’s Gunkul Engineering, Jay Mart and Singer Thailand that plans to promote photo voltaic panels.

The most important deal was with Skytrain billionaire Keeree Kanjapanas’s BTS Group, which invested 17.5 billion baht to accumulate 25% of each Jay Mart and Singer Thailand. Adisak, mates with Keeree’s son Kavin for 20 years, says they hope to learn from cross-selling synergies as the 2 corporations, between them, have 17 million clients. Jay Mart may arrange retailers for home equipment and cell phones at BTS prepare stations, which may additionally change into a gross sales channel for Singer Thailand, says FSS Worldwide Funding Advisory Securities analyst Naruedom Mujjalinkool, who is predicated in Bangkok.

“We are able to now develop thrice quicker and attain the following degree.”

With the brand new companions and deliberate investments of 30 billion baht this yr, Adisak asserts, “we are able to now develop thrice quicker and attain the following degree.” His goal is to develop Jay Mart’s internet revenue 50% yearly over the following three years. “The highest line doesn’t imply something with out income. You’ll be able to’t preserve standing for too lengthy with out income,” he asserts.

Adisak was born in Bangkok however moved to Yala, Thailand’s southernmost province, the place his father opened a shoe restore store. At age 17, Adisak went to Iowa for a yr as a highschool trade pupil. The yr was a turning level in his life, he says. “It was such a special world. I began to dream in English.”

Throughout his American stint, he took to sports activities—baseball, wrestling, golf—which grew to become an abiding curiosity. On Saturdays he performs soccer with mates and firm executives at a personal, 1.2ha sports activities subject he constructed subsequent to his house. “After I was younger, I had nowhere to play,” he recounts.

After getting a level in agricultural economics from Bangkok’s Kasetsart College, Adisak wished to return to the U.S. for graduate research however couldn’t afford it. So he enrolled in a grasp’s program at Kasetsart on a scholarship, supplementing it by engaged on campus doing market analysis. His first job in 1982 was in funding analysis at Thai securities agency Tisco, the place he met his spouse Yuvadee. A few years later, he shifted to client durables large Philips as an assistant product supervisor.

4 years later, Adisak ventured out on his personal. “It was a dangerous transfer however I requested myself—do you need to stay poor or do you need to give a greater life to your loved ones?” he says. After finding out the enterprise mannequin of Singer, which offered stitching machines and family home equipment on a hire-purchase plan (also called an installment plan), Adisak was assured that there was room for an additional participant.

The couple pooled their mixed financial savings of two million baht to arrange Jay Mart, replicating the Singer mannequin however promoting different manufacturers of electronics and home equipment, similar to Panasonic, Hitachi and Philips. The corporate’s title was impressed by Kmart, the place Adisak shopped when in Iowa. “Jay” got here from the initials of their names, together with daughter Juthamas. It’s additionally the nickname of their son Ekachai, born the yr the primary Jay Mart retailer opened.

In 1992, Jay Mart added cell phones, providing manufacturers similar to Nokia and Ericsson on an installment foundation. Gross sales picked up however earlier than lengthy Adisak was blindsided by the entry of Japanese monetary companies firm Aeon. Realizing he couldn’t match Aeon’s low-interest loans, Adisak determined to start out one other enterprise: debt assortment. He figured that he may deploy Jay Mart’s subject employees, who have been skilled in accumulating installment funds, to gather unsecured client loans for different corporations. Adisak says that seeing larger cell phone sellers shut down taught him to by no means rely upon only one enterprise.

However one among his bets went badly flawed after he invested 2 million baht in a enterprise arrange by some mates to fabricate tv units. The enterprise was mismanaged and inside three years it was getting ready to closure, with a debt of 30 million baht. Along with his repute in jeopardy, Adisak agreed to tackle your entire debt and started trying urgently for tactics to pay it off.

He approached Aeon, providing to construction a hire-purchase mannequin for cell phones with an enterprise to purchase them again if clients defaulted. The 400 baht service price Jay Mart obtained on each cellphone financed by Aeon earned the corporate 700 million baht over seven years. This paid off the debt and helped develop Jay Mart into one among Thailand’s prime cell phone distributors.

Adisak says he’s seemed for alternatives in each disaster. After the 1997-98 Asian monetary disaster, when others hunkered down, he opened extra shops. He approached retailing large Central group, which provided to lease him a carpark at one among its Large C hypermarkets. “In enterprise,” says Adisak, “I by no means say no. In truth, when others say ‘no,’ I say ‘sure.’”

“In enterprise, I by no means say no. In truth, when others say ‘no,’ I say ‘sure.’”

He transformed the automotive park right into a mini mall of small retailers for cellphone distributors. Tenants have been initially exhausting to search out and the enterprise made a loss the primary yr. To kickstart it, he opened 20 cell phone shops underneath totally different names, a ploy that created sufficient of a buzz to attract in tenants. This was expanded to 40 areas underneath IT Junction, a thriving division inside Jay Mart, which in 2015 was spun off as property improvement arm JAS Asset.

By 2002, Adisak was eyeing a public itemizing for his flagship to develop extra rapidly. However Jay Mart’s IPO software was rejected that yr and once more in 2005 as the corporate then couldn’t meet the regulatory necessities. Adisak says his spouse, who has been working with him since 1994, suggested him to neglect it, however he refused. “I knew that if I surrendered, I’d haven’t any future,” he recollects. He succeeded in 2009, elevating 133 million baht by way of an IPO that valued Jay Mart at 540 million baht, a valuation that has since soared to 79 billion baht.

The IPO funds have been used to repay loans and to develop the debt assortment unit, which he took public in 2012. JMT’s IPO raised 333 million baht and valued the corporate at 3.6 billion baht. Previously decade, JMT’s market cap has grown 30 instances to 107 billion baht. Three years later, Jay Mart spun off JAS Asset and listed it at a valuation of 1 billion baht.

In 2015, Jay Mart made a landmark acquisition, paying 950 million baht for a 25% stake in Singer Thailand, an organization Adisak had lengthy admired and whose enterprise mannequin he had efficiently replicated. “Our CFO mentioned we had no cash, however I couldn’t let it go,” he recollects. He raised funds by way of a mixture of financial institution loans and promoting a part of Jay Mart’s stake in JMT. “Singer has been in Thailand for 133 years. It’s precisely a century older than Jay Mart,” says Adisak, including that he’s now making ready to listing its finance arm SG Capital.

5 years in the past, Adisak expanded into fintech, establishing J Ventures underneath Jay Mart. In 2018, it launched the nation’s first preliminary coin providing by a public firm, promoting 100 million JFinCoins inside three days. Adisak sees himself as Thailand’s crypto pioneer and is assured that the nation’s latest regulation banning cryptocurrencies can be non permanent.

Adisak had initially deliberate to retire this yr, however after the capital injection from BTS, he says that plan was postponed for a few years. He’s grooming his U.S.-educated son Ekachai, who’s been working with him for eight years and is Jay Mart’s deputy CEO, to succeed him. “He’s the best man on the proper time,” he avers.

At current, Adisak is concentrated on delivering his development objective and making each enterprise a market chief in its section. “I don’t imagine in consuming mud, however making mud,” he says, a reference to a automotive race on a mud monitor the place the car within the lead creates a mud storm.

Challenges abound. Naruedom of FSS factors out that whereas JMT Community is already one of many greatest gamers in debt assortment, the emergence of extra rivals bidding aggressively for nonperforming loans may chip away at income. Furthermore, an financial slowdown may influence gross sales of family home equipment. Adisak says the crises he’s weathered prior to now have taught him by no means to underestimate any state of affairs.

Whereas wealth permits him to take pleasure in such passions as accumulating effective wines, Adisak says he hasn’t forgotten his roots; he prefers road meals to effective eating. With two of his greatest corporations within the SET 50, Adisak is conscious that he’s now within the ring with the massive boys: “But it surely’s solely step one. I need to step up and win.”

—Further reporting by Anuradha Raghunathan