It happened at a share holders meeting in the faraway province of Rayong, where shareholders unanimously approved the rout of the three directors representing the

family. Malinee, Prateep and Pramuan are all siblings of TPI founder Prachai.

IRPC's new management, led by representatives from PTT, now sees its dream come true of a Leophairatana-free environment.

It took months of struggle, ever since PTT and other partners took over TPI last year and renamed the company in an effort to dissociate it from the Leophairatana family. Last year the new shareholders managed to kick Prachai off the board of directors, just days after he named himself company chairman.

Further struggle was necessary, given that the company's book stipulates that all 22 directors must sign the financial statements before they are submitted to the stock-exchange authorities. This the defiant

family members refused to do, resulting in possibly provocative delays.

Many may be surprised that Prachai was totally defeated despite his notoriety as the toughest debtor in the past 10 years.

In a recent interview, Piti Yimprasert, president of IRPC, told The Nation that there had been a trick to it.

While other companies count votes by the number of shares held, each shareholder of

IRPC has an equal vote regardless.

Being on the board and in management, Piti knew before each shareholders meeting how many people from the Prachai camp would show up, and he promptly split the shares under the control of PTT and other major shareholders, distributing them among a larger number of people.

As a result, the new shareholders never lost to the Prachai camp. (Indeed, the point of hosting the shareholders' meeting on Friday in Rayong was that the auditorium at the Rayong plant was large enough to accommodate the expected number of participants.)

Given that Prachai holds more than 100 million shares, he could split them among a million people. Asked how the new shareholders would react if he did so, Piti smiled resignedly.

"We wouldn't be able to fight him. How could I mobilise a million people?"

Luckily, on Friday only 2,191 shareholders turned up, probably precisely because the meeting was in Rayong and kicked off at 10am sharp. Time and place played their part too.

achara_d@nationgroup.com