Charoen Pokphand
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| Charoen Pokphand Group | |
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| Type | Private, family-owned |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1921 |
| Headquarters | Bangkok, Thailand |
| Key people | Dhanin Chearavanont, chairman and CEO |
| Industry | Agribusiness Telecommunications Retailing |
| Products | Meat, Frozen food, Restaurants, Telephone companies, Internet service provider, Hypermarkets, Convenience stores |
| Employees | 100,000 |
| Subsidiaries | Charoen Pokphand Foods True Corporation CP 7-Eleven PLC |
| Website | www.cpthailand.com |
The Charoen Pokphand Group is the largest business conglomerate in Thailand. Its chief subsidiary is Charoen Pokphand Foods, which did 116.5 billion baht in revenue in 2005, earning a profit of 6.747 billion baht.[1] Aside from agribusiness, the family-owned holding company's interests range from retailing, as the franchisee of Thailand's ubiquitous 7-Eleven stores to telecommunications, as the owner of True Corporation, a mobile telephone, Internet service provider and cable television company.
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[edit] History
Charoen Pokphand traces its beginnings back to 1921, when brothers Ek Chor and Siew Whooy started the Chai Tai seed shop in Bangkok's Chinatown. They imported seeds and vegetables from China and exported pigs and eggs to Hong Kong.
Taking the Thai name Chearavanont, the family business prospered when it adopted the strategy of turning its seed customers into suppliers for an animal feed. In 1954, the company opened its first feed mill (it's now the fifth largest feed-mill operator in the world), and it soon branched out into livestock operations, beginning with poultry and then swine.
The company has grown into a global business, with more than 250 subsidiaries in 20 countries, including China, where it is known as the Chia Tai Group.
The CP Group was formerly a partner in the Tesco Lotus venture with Tesco of the United Kingdom and in Makro stores with that chain's Dutch parent company. Facing media criticism about the spread of hypermarkets in Thailand, the company sold its stakes in those enterprises in 2003. However, the company kept its shares in Tesco Lotus outlets in China.[2]
[edit] Subsidiaries
[edit] Charoen Pokphand Foods
Charoen Pokphand Foods Public Company Limited (SET: CPF) was registered as Charoen Pokphand Feedmill Company Limited on January 17, 1978. Growing into Thailand's largest agribusiness firm, it was renamed Charoen Pokphand Foods in 1999 and has the slogan "Kitchen of the World."
[edit] True Corporation
True Corporation (SET: TRUE) was established in 1990 as TelecomAsia. The firm had a strategic partnership with Verizon. The company was listed on the Stock Exchange of Thailand in 1993. In 2001, TelecomAsia set up a mobile phone subsidiary with pOrange SA. Orange sold off its stake in the venture in 2003 but the Orange brand was still used. In an effort to converge all its existing telecommunications related business into a single brand, the company renamed itself True Corporation in 2004 and streamlined its operations with subsidiaries AsiaInfonet (renamed True Internet) and Orange (renamed True Move) amongst others. It operates fixed-line (as a concessionaire of TOT Plc), wireless, Cable TV, IPTV and Broadband services amongst others.
The company has aggressively pushed itself as an Internet service provider, a broadband and ADSL network. With more than 1 million subscribers, it is now Thailand's largest ISP.
In 2005, True took a higher stake in UBC, Thailand's largest cable television provider, and renamed the network UBC-True. [3] On January 24th 2007 UBC-True was renamed True Visions.
[edit] Joint ventures
- CP-Meiji dairy, with Meiji Dairies of Japan.
- CP7 Eleven (SET: CP7-11) with 7-Eleven of Japan.
[edit] References
- ^ Company Highlights, Stock Exchange of Thailand (retrieved July 19, 2006).
- ^ CP Group gives up on Tesco and Makro, Bangkok Post, December 8, 2002 (via SiamFuture.com)
- ^ Amnatcharoenrit, Bamrung and Tortermvasana, Komsan (November 8, 2005). "True Corp set to take over UBC", Bangkok Post (retrieved July 18, 2006 via AsiaMedia.com).
