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Published on July 20, 2007

My family taught me to do everything by myself and be sincere with my friends and customers, and that's my philosophy for running my family's property business," says Pimpaka Wanglee.

And against formidable odds, doing everything by herself has resulted in the achievement of her dreams. Pimpaka, 38, is CEO of Rangsit Plaza, operator of Future Park Rangsit. She is also a fifth-generation member of one of Thailand's oldest tycoon families.

The Wanglee family established its business empire during the reign of His Majesty King Rama IV. It began in agricultural trading, which developed into a banking business that was sold to Standard Chartered Bank after the 1997financial crisis.

Pimpaka says the past 15 years - since she took over management of Rangsit Plaza - has been a period of intense pressure for building Future Park Rangsit into a well-known shopping centre, to compete with other big complexes in Bangkok and neighbouring provinces.

The level of pressure is understandable - Pimpaka began her professional life in 1992 at the tender age of 24, with little experience in property development.

Before joining the family business, Pimpaka was an investment banker at the now-defunct Finance One - a job she took in 1991 after gaining a business degree from the University of Vermont and a master's degree from Boston University, both in the US.

Pimpaka was in for a big change one year later when her father, Sukit - an executive of the group and chairman of Poon Phol, as well as the clan's "big brother" - asked Pimpaka whether she was interested in working with the family.

The property-development project came into being when the family decided to develop a large plot of land in Rangsit, north of Bangkok in Pathum Thani province, into a large shopping centre with a commercial area of 500,000 square metres.

Pimpaka did not make an immediate decision but instead met a number of shopping-centre operators to gather more information on how to run a business like that effectively.

"I decided to resign from Fin One at the end of 1991 and started working with Rangsit Plaza [operator of Future Park Rangsit] in April 1992. It was a very challenging task for me," she recalls.

Just one month after joining the family business, when the company was building the largest shopping centre in Bangkok and in the process of selling space to retailers, Thailand plunged abruptly into serious political turmoil in what became known as Black May.

Many potential investors who had shown strong interest in the project were driven away by the political strife. And more than 500,000 square metres of retail space were waiting to be sold in Future Park.

"I personally knocked on the doors of 300-400 retail businesses. I promised all of the owners that our shopping centre would open on schedule in March 1995," says Pimpaka, recalling this hardest time in her professional life.

Then a second problem arose. A number of businesses that had agreed to open outlets in the centre said they could not do so on time, because they needed money to decorate their stores.

Pimpaka said she struggled to convince retail operators that the centre had great potential, given that the number of visitors was expected to exceed 90,000 per day in the first year of operation and would increase to 100,000 the following year.

Her efforts paid off. Retailers were persuaded to open in the new centre, allowing Future Park to open on time on March 17, 1995.

"I felt so great when the project began on schedule after I'd worked so hard for more than three years," Pimpaka says.

However, trouble struck again in mid-1997, when the country's economy plunged into crisis. Rangsit Plaza faced serious financial difficulties when the baht was floated. Like many other Thai companies, Rangsit Plaza had followed the recommendations of its financial advisers and converted its baht debts into foreign debts, in order to benefit from the lower costs of borrowing abroad.

"At first, we planned to borrow baht from the local bank, but our financial adviser suggested we borrow US dollars, because at the time dollar loans offered interest rates up to 6-per-cent lower than did baht loans. That challenged us to borrow dollars," she explains.

The company decided to arrange a dollar loan worth Bt1 billion in January 1997. Just six months later, as the financial crisis broke, the government abandoned its 13-year-old fixed exchange-rate system, the baht tumbled, and company debt doubled to Bt2 billion.

"Iron-heart" Pimpaka didn't give up. She spent two years, from 1997 to 1999, negotiating a debt-restructuring plan with creditors.

Once again, her efforts paid off. The negotiations were successful, and the company was ready to move on.

Pimpaka now says she has learned how to run a business so that it survives crises. "When we're confronted with a problem and have the presence of mind to solve it, then we'll succeed. We will survive."

At present, Future Park Rangsit receives up to 120,000 shoppers on each weekday and 140,000 shoppers on both weekend days. The company recorded revenues of Bt1.4 billion last year, showing growth of 200 per cent over the Bt400 million it made in 1995.

Future Park Rangsit also succeeded in raising funds from the capital market this year by launching a property fund worth Bt4.7 billion. The proceeds will be spent to expand the group's property business into what will be called Future City. The grand concept involves the development of about 32 hectares of land near Future Park into an entirely new city within a decade.

Pimpaka explains that the new city at the Rangsit Intersection will involve a variety of property developments at the same location, including serviced apartments, hotels and community retail areas.

"Future City is my new dream to develop my family's property in the future," she says. "But we've learned from the crisis that we must study business risks before expanding, so we will proceed slowly; our philosophy will be 'slow but sure'."

Her success in running Future Park Rangsit and her new dream of building Future City have reinforced for Pimpaka the value of hard work.

"Although I was born into a wealthy family, they taught me to do everything by myself and work at running my business, rather than enjoying the family's assets. As a result, I have confidence in running my family's property business and generating more benefits for the family empire. Meanwhile, my business partners - especially those who rent retail space - can enjoy the benefits of working with me," she says.

Somluck Srimalee

The Nation