BANGKOK Land Plc plunged into mourning after the company’s big boss Anant Kanjanapas died of old age at 80 in Bangkok Nursing Home Hospital (BNH) yesterday, Sanook.com reported today (14.4.2020)
His family said they would be performing funeral rites for Anant after the lockdown is over with an announcement to be made later.
A brief personal history of Anant is as follows:
He was born on June 2, 1941 as the second son of Mr Mongkol Kanchanapas and graduated with a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from a Swiss college.
He has two sons, Peter Kanchanapas, vice chairman and managing director, Bangkok Land Plc and Paul Kanchanapas, managing director of Impact Exhibition Management Company Limited.
According to Wikipedia, Mongkol Kanjanapas or Wong Chue Meng, was born in Bangkok to an immigrant Chinese father. He did business in Thailand, and was a shareholder in Siam City Bank, before moving to Hong Kong. There, in 1963, he founded Stelux Holdings, whose business grew from producing Seiko watches.
Mongkol had eleven children, including sons Anant and Keeree (born in 1950).
Most of the family settled in Hong Kong under the name Wong, though Anant and Keeree moved back to Thailand during the 1980s–1990s for business opportunities.
Anant headed real estate developer Bangkok Land, while Keeree led Tanayong (later known as BTS Group Holdings, BTSG), the developer of Bangkok’s first mass transit system, the BTS Skytrain.
Both companies suffered heavy losses from the 1997 Asian financial crisis, but the family managed to retain the businesses.
Today, just as Anant’s sons Peter and Paul have taken over the reins of Bangkok Land and Impact Exhibition respectively , Keeree’s son Kavin also moved up as CEO of BTSG in 2015.
It was in 2012 that Anant pulled Bangkok Land out of the quagmire of debts and returned it to a stable financial status with no debt burden and was able to pay dividends to shareholders for the first time in 15 years that year.
Anant continued to expand his real estate, retail and MICE businesses after that with the latter developed as Impact Muang Thong Thani which is considered Thailand’s premier exhibition and convention centre.
Another achievement is the listing of Impact as the country’s very first real estate investment trust (RIET) in 2013.
CAPTION:
Anant Kanjanapas was one of the titans of this country’s real estate industry. Photo: Sanook.com
By NIna Suebsukcharoen
