Chirathivat family

The Chirathivat family (Thai: จิราธิวัฒน์, pronounced [tɕìrāːtʰíwát]) is a Thai family of Chinese descent. The family was headed by Tiang Chirathivat (1905–1968), who migrated to Siam from Hainan and settled in Bangkok in 1927. Tiang had three wives and twenty-five children. Today his descendants jointly own and manage the Central Group, and are ranked first on Forbes' list of Thailand's forty richest.^[1] The Chirathivat family owns numerous mega-sized department stores across Thailand as well as the well known Centara Hotel brand. The Chirathivat family recently bought the upscale Italian department store chain, La Rinascente, for a reputed US$291 million. The purchase was announced in May 2011 by Tos Chirathivat, a Central Group executive.^[2]

Despite being one of the wealthiest families in Thailand, the Chirathivat family is also fecund, being composed of a number of subsidiary families, each with individual stakes and claims in business holdings, meaning that individual wealth of certain family members becomes relatively diffuse. The opaque corporate structure, obscure nature of accounts and the intertwining as well as complex nature of subsidiary family interests in certain holdings renders any individual calculation of wealth uncertain.

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