It has also set aside a Bt600-million marketing budget, says executive vice president for marketing Naporn Sunthorn-chitcharoen.

Currently, more than half of LH's customers are more than 30 years old.

"We have to expand our customer target to cover the young generation, which has a different lifestyle than our existing customer target group. We need to move our brands closer to the young generation while keeping existing customers. We're launching TV commercials and billboards and event marketing campaigns. We're offering discounts and selling through direct mail," said Naporn.

This is the first time LH has promoted its products in the mass media since the 1997 economic crisis. It rose to become market leader but suffered major challenges last year, including the economic slow-down and higher oil prices, which ate into company sales.

Focusing mostly on single houses in suburban areas, it lost new-generation home-buyers who prefer condominium units in urban areas.

Last year, LH's sales revenues slumped 22.47 per cent to Bt17.6 billion, from Bt22.7 billion in 2005. Its net profit dropped 36.72 per cent to Bt3.24 billion, from Bt5.12 billion in 2005.

The company also announced a reorganisation of its business administration. Much like Preuksa Real Estate, its property development will in the future be carried out by different teams and categorised according to type of product.

Previously, its teams were assigned to cover particular areas and responsible for all development types - single houses, town houses and condominiums - in those areas.

Naporn said the new administration concept would create different products, the better to meet customer demand.

This year, LH plans to launch nine new property projects worth Bt10 billion. Six of them are detached-housing projects, two are town houses and one a condominium project. These will add to its development portfolio covering 37 property projects with a value of Bt46.03 billion.

Naporn said LH expects sales revenues of Bt20 billion this year, up 17.6 per cent from last year.

The company will also invest Bt4.5 billion this year.

LH executive vice president for finance Adisorn Thananun-narapool said Bt3.5 billion would be spent on new land, Bt300 million for new shares issued by LH Bank and Bt700 million for new shares in Royal Excellence - a 60/40 joint venture between LH and Government Investment of Singapore.

Royal Excellence, which is developing three serviced-apartment and office-building projects on Sathorn and Sukhumvit roads with a combined value of Bt8 billion, will soon be renamed LH Property.

Adisorn said LH Property would focus only on the rental-fee business.

To finance the investment, LH plans to issue debentures to raise Bt5 billion in the second half of the year.

"Our debentures will raise funds from the domestic market, so they will not feel any negative impact from the 30 per cent [capital-control measure]," said Adisorn.

Somluck Srimalee

 The Nation