\n Adisak SukumvitayaWith the new partners and planned investments of 30 billion baht this year, Adisak asserts, \u201cwe can now grow three times faster and reach the next level.\u201d His target is to grow Jay Mart\u2019s net profit 50% annually over the next three years. \u201cThe top line doesn\u2019t mean anything without profits. You can\u2019t keep standing for too long without profits,\u201d he asserts.<\/p>\n\nAdisak’s passion for art is reflected in the numerous paintings by local artists displayed at Jay House, his sprawling mansion.<\/p>\n
Andre Malerba for Forbes Asia<\/small>
A<\/abbr>disak was born in Bangkok<\/strong> but moved to Yala, Thailand\u2019s southernmost province, where his father opened a shoe repair shop. At age 17, Adisak went to Iowa for a year as a high school exchange student. The year was a turning point in his life, he says. \u201cIt was such a different world. I started to dream in English.\u201d <\/p>\nDuring his American stint, he took to sports\u2014baseball, wrestling, golf\u2014which became an abiding interest. On Saturdays he plays soccer with friends and company executives at a private, 1.2ha sports field he built next to his home. \u201cWhen I was young, I had nowhere to play,\u201d he recounts. <\/p>\n
After getting a degree in agricultural economics from Bangkok\u2019s Kasetsart University, Adisak wanted to return to the U.S. for graduate studies but couldn\u2019t afford it. So he enrolled in a master\u2019s program at Kasetsart on a scholarship, supplementing it by working on campus doing market research. His first job in 1982 was in investment research at Thai securities firm Tisco, where he met his wife Yuvadee. A couple of years later, he shifted to consumer durables giant Philips as an assistant product manager. <\/p>\n
Four years later, Adisak ventured out on his own. \u201cIt was a risky move but I asked myself\u2014do you want to remain poor or do you want to give a better life to your family?\u201d he says. After studying the business model of Singer, which sold sewing machines and household appliances on a hire-purchase plan (also known as an installment plan), Adisak was confident that there was room for another player.<\/p>\n
The couple pooled their combined savings of 2 million baht to set up Jay Mart, replicating the Singer model but selling other brands of electronics and appliances, such as Panasonic, Hitachi and Philips. The company\u2019s name was inspired by Kmart, where Adisak shopped when in Iowa. \u201cJay\u201d came from the initials of their names, including daughter Juthamas. It\u2019s also the nickname of their son Ekachai, born the year the first Jay Mart store opened.<\/p>\n\nJay Mart is one of the country’s largest mobile phone distributors with a network of 200 stores such as this one. <\/p>\n
Jay Mart<\/small>
In 1992, Jay Mart added mobile phones, offering brands such as Nokia and Ericsson on an installment basis. Sales picked up but before long Adisak was blindsided by the entry of Japanese financial services company Aeon. Realizing he could not match Aeon\u2019s low-interest loans, Adisak decided to start another business: debt collection. He figured that he could deploy Jay Mart\u2019s field staff, who were experienced in collecting installment payments, to collect unsecured consumer loans for other companies. Adisak says that seeing bigger mobile phone sellers shut down taught him to never depend on just one business.<\/p>\n
But one of his bets went badly wrong after he invested 2 million baht in a venture set up by some friends to manufacture television sets. The business was mismanaged and within three years it was on the brink of closure, with a debt of 30 million baht. With his reputation in jeopardy, Adisak agreed to take on the entire debt and began looking urgently for ways to pay it off. <\/p>\n
He approached Aeon, offering to structure a hire-purchase model for mobile phones with an undertaking to buy them back if customers defaulted. The 400 baht service fee Jay Mart received on every phone financed by Aeon earned the company 700 million baht over seven years. This paid off the debt and helped grow Jay Mart into one of Thailand\u2019s top mobile phone distributors.<\/p>\n
Adisak says he\u2019s looked for opportunities in every crisis. After the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis, when others hunkered down, he opened more stores. He approached retailing giant Central group, which offered to lease him a car park at one of its Big C hypermarkets. \u201cIn business,\u201d says Adisak, \u201cI never say no. In fact, when others say \u2018no,\u2019 I say \u2018yes.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n
\n\u201cIn business, I never say no. In fact, when others say \u2018no,\u2019 I say \u2018yes.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n\n Adisak SukumvitayaHe converted the car park into a mini mall of small shops for phone vendors. Tenants were initially hard to find and the business made a loss the first year. To kickstart it, he opened 20 mobile phone stores under different names, a ploy that created enough of a buzz to draw in tenants. This was expanded to 40 locations under IT Junction, a thriving division within Jay Mart, which in 2015 was spun off as property development arm JAS Asset.<\/p>\n
By 2002, Adisak was eyeing a public listing for his flagship to grow more quickly. But Jay Mart\u2019s IPO application was rejected that year and again in 2005 as the company then couldn\u2019t meet the regulatory requirements. Adisak says his wife, who has been working with him since 1994, advised him to forget it, but he refused. \u201cI knew that if I surrendered, I would have no future,\u201d he recalls. He succeeded in 2009, raising 133 million baht through an IPO that valued Jay Mart at 540 million baht, a valuation that has since soared to 79 billion baht. <\/p>\n
The IPO funds were used to pay off loans and to expand the debt collection unit, which he took public in 2012. JMT\u2019s IPO raised 333 million baht and valued the company at 3.6 billion baht. In the past decade, JMT\u2019s market cap has grown 30 times to 107 billion baht. Three years later, Jay Mart spun off JAS Asset and listed it at a valuation of 1 billion baht.<\/p>\n\nSince the start of the pandemic, the tycoon has worked from home, doing board meetings on Zoom. \u201cWorking remotely suits me,\u201d he declares.<\/p>\n
Andre Malerba for Forbes Asia<\/small>
In 2015, Jay Mart made a landmark acquisition, paying 950 million baht for a 25% stake in Singer Thailand, a company Adisak had long admired and whose business model he had successfully replicated. \u201cOur CFO said we had no money, but I couldn\u2019t let it go,\u201d he recalls. He raised funds through a mix of bank loans and selling part of Jay Mart\u2019s stake in JMT. \u201cSinger has been in Thailand for 133 years. It\u2019s exactly a century older than Jay Mart,\u201d says Adisak, adding that he\u2019s now preparing to list its finance arm SG Capital.<\/p>\n
Five years ago, Adisak expanded into fintech, establishing J Ventures under Jay Mart. In 2018, it launched the country\u2019s first initial coin offering by a public company, selling 100 million JFinCoins within three days. Adisak sees himself as Thailand\u2019s crypto pioneer and is confident that the country\u2019s recent regulation banning cryptocurrencies will be temporary.<\/p>\n
Adisak had initially planned to retire this year, but after the capital injection from BTS, he says that plan was postponed for a couple of years. He\u2019s grooming his U.S.-educated son Ekachai, who\u2019s been working with him for eight years and is Jay Mart\u2019s deputy CEO, to succeed him. \u201cHe\u2019s the right guy at the right time,\u201d he avers. <\/p>\n
At present, Adisak is focused on delivering his growth goal and making every business a market leader in its segment. \u201cI don\u2019t believe in eating dust, but making dust,\u201d he says, a reference to a car race on a dirt track where the vehicle in the lead creates a dust storm. <\/p>\n
Challenges abound. Naruedom of FSS points out that while JMT Network is already one of the biggest players in debt collection, the emergence of more competitors bidding aggressively for nonperforming loans could chip away at profits. Moreover, an economic slowdown could impact sales of household appliances. Adisak says the crises he\u2019s weathered in the past have taught him never to underestimate any situation. <\/p>\n
While wealth allows him to indulge in such passions as collecting fine wines, Adisak says he hasn\u2019t forgotten his roots; he prefers street food to fine dining. With two of his biggest companies in the SET 50, Adisak is aware that he\u2019s now in the ring with the big boys: \u201cBut it\u2019s only the first step. I want to step up and win.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u2014Additional reporting by Anuradha Raghunathan<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\nSource link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This story is part of Forbes’ coverage of Thailand\u2019s Richest 2022. See the full list here. Adisak Sukumvitaya parlayed Jay Mart from a single store into a tech-driven retailing and financial services group with a total market cap of $6.5 billion. And he’s still dreaming big. When Thailand\u2019s stock exchange recently rejigged its SET50 Index, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22074,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[39],"tags":[2144,9575,1694,9573,9574,1498,9415,1507],"class_list":["post-22073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ico","tag-aims","tag-annually","tag-increase","tag-jay","tag-mart","tag-profits","tag-thailands","tag-years"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/0x0.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22073"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22073\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22075,"href":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22073\/revisions\/22075"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}