Despite his prosperity and well-politically connections, Thailand’s second richest person according to Forbes, Charoen Siriwattanaphakdee, was failed again in taking Thai Beverage Plc (ThaiBev) home from Singapore stock listing.

A heavy public resistance remains a major obstacle for the maker of the Beer Chang’s homecoming. Despite its latest effort for a listing on the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) got all the necessary approvals from government’s top administrators and agencies, the company has once again called off the plan when thousands of Buddhists monks staged a rally at the SET office.

A week earlier, ThaiBev was upbeat it will receive a warmest welcomed as SET’s latest listing company of the year. Many had hoped that ThaiBev’s homecoming is a move that will help restored investor confident as well as rescued the market from currently slumping, which made worst records in a decade daily.

Why homecoming

Offshore, ThaiBev was not doing well on the Singapore bourse. Its Singapore $0.28 IPO went down to the floor of S$0.19 in few months of trading before making a technical rebound to between S$0.20 – S$0.23 a share and currently is traded at $0.21 a share.

Singapore’s economic growth, on the other hand, was reported even worst than that of Thailand, according to analysts.

With an annual cash flow of 21 billion baht generating solely from a brewery business, a homecoming to the Thai bourse was seen by many as a key factor to move Mr. Charoen up a higher position on the Forbes’ lists ladder.

Several analysts believed that ThaiBev’s expansion to the soft drink business by acquiring Oishi is an attempt to show the public that its major businesses has been diversified largely to non-alcohol-related products.

However, despite of legally correct, ThaiBev’s ethical on an attempt to raise money for its beverage business always got the public raised eyebrows, especially the Buddhist-dominated community.

Fact data

Thai Beverage Plc reported a nine-month earning of 76.52 billion baht, up 2.5 percent from the same period a previous year, and net profit of 7.38 billion baht, or 0.3 percent higher than a year earlier.

The company’s net worth was 79.83 billion baht, consisting of 24.20 billion baht in debt and 55.64 billion baht in owner equity.

Chief investment communications Richard Jones said ThaiBev has a policy to pay out dividends not less than 50 percent of its net profit.

ThaiBev P/E ratio was averaging 10.2 times and 50 percent of its costs are concise taxes.

Mr. Charoen’s motto is serene but powerful like water, which means when the tidal waves move it will create a devastating effect.