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Published on August 31, 2007

 In a business environment replete with corporate gloom, stories of undiminished success seem unusual. The case of property investment consultant Jones Lang LaSalle (Thailand) seems even more remarkable for the fact that it arises from a property industry suffering more than most from Thailand's current economic malaise.

Over the past three years, the company has achieved annual revenue growth of more than 30 per cent. And after a buoyant first six months that exceeded the firm's own expectations, it is forecasting 32-per-cent growth for 2007.

After a remarkable career path, managing director Suphin Mechuchep is recognised as one of Thailand's prominent working women. She refers with pride to the reputation of her operation within the worldwide Jones Lang Lasalle organisation: "With the exception of China and India, our growth rate is ranked among the top five in the Asia-Pacific region."

Suphin began at Jones Lang LaSalle 15 years ago, as someone able to perform any job in the office. She had to ensure smooth operations between her colleagues in all departments, helping them to analyse and solve problems as well as coming up with creative ideas.

Her strong personality and readiness to come to grips with problems found her promoted to become a director, then head of property management for buildings, houses and other properties, and eventually managing director. She was among the first group of officers to help create a reputation for the company soon after it was founded in 1990.

But her impressive career path had tenuous beginnings. Her application was made in the belief that she had to apply for a job where she would face the least competition from other candidates and in reality, she had been dreaming of something else altogether.

Suphin's family runs a business related to herbal medicines, so she dreamed of becoming a pharmacist to expand the business by creating its own brand and developing a manufacturing process. She chose pharmacy as her first alternative when she took the university entrance examination, but failed. Eventually, she gained a place in Chulalongkorn University's Faculty of Economics.

After graduating in 1988, Suphin began working at Asia Bank because she wanted to understand financial systems to increase her efficiency in business management. After one year there, she became bored because she considered she knew every detail of the job.

"In 1987 and 1988, the stock market in Thailand was booming. All economics graduates felt the need to either work in a financial career or start trading on the stock market" she recalls. Suphin changed her life's goals and became an investor. The top-rated stocks in which she invested included Unicord and Finone.

"My mother lent me Bt300,000 to buy Unicord's stocks, which had a buying price of Bt50 per share and I sold them at Bt150. Imagine how much I could generate! Then, I used the profit to buy Finone shares and the thought of that stock gives me pain, even today," Suphin says. Then she smiles and adds that the good thing about being an investor is learning never to lament when selling stocks. Be brave in making decisions, always study information about certain stocks very thoroughly and only choose stocks with good performance.

Suphin's purchase of Finone stocks coincided with the start of the Gulf War. The Thai economy slumped, people were laid off, and those in financial careers and the airline business suffered most. With the economic problems and Suphin's lack of experience, she almost lost everything.

"Today, Finone's stock can be used as wallpaper," she says, adding that she hopes her experience will remind people that nothing can make them rich quickly. When investing in stock markets, people should bear in mind that financial consultants will usually give half of the information they have, and will always collect a commission for buying or selling by stock players.

Good investors, she says, must take care to find as much information as possible. They must have money and be able to manage the risks in their portfolios.

The harsh lessons of the stock market drove Suphin to seek more knowledge and she targeted three fields: finance, insurance and real estate. She finally chose to study real estate at San Diego in the United States. After that, she took a job with Jones Lang LaSalle, previously known as Jones Lang Wootton, a multinational investing and real-estate consultancy with 220 years of business history. It provides consulting services in more than 100 cities and has its headquarters in the US.

Part of her reasons for wanting to work for the global company was a job description that allowed her to "have a fun experience", with opportunities to help solve many problems and to meet high-ranking executives and learn of their thinking, their practices and their successes.

These days, as a managing director herself, she says she needs to manage each job very well. The key points, she says, are providing impressive services and creating equal rights among all officers, depending on their positions. She also has other working philosophies: one's job must be understood in detail and one must be honest and create happiness among subordinates.

With her current responsibilities, Suphin is always ready to help plan and adjust to all economic situations. She opened two new departments, one for trading in second-hand houses and condominium units and the other providing management services for project construction and decoration. They were a form of adjustment to Thailand's current economic situation and allowed the company to provide integrated services.

Suphin expects the two departments to be major contributors to the company's sustainable growth, but not without an early hiccup. The headquarters of Jones Land LaSalle delivered a worldwide policy that all operations should focus on corporate clients only, so the department trading in second-hand houses and condominium units had to shut down. However, while it had been operating, it found that many executives wanted to buy and sell condominium units and serviced apartments. Some even wanted to buy more than one unit or offer units for rental.

So on the basis of corporate business, the policy was reviewed and the department reopened.

Meanwhile, the department that provides management services helps project owners to manage construction and decoration bidding, which minimises a complex process, saves the owners' time and costs as well as ensuring that architects' and engineers' plans are followed. It is currently managing a villa project at Phuket for a foreign owner.

Suphin believes the Kingdom is still an attractive country for foreign real-estate investors, and says there is still at least Bt50 billion to Bt60 billion waiting to be invested here. About Bt30 billion of it is expected to be invested through Jones Lang LaSalle, she adds. Most of the investors want to put their money into office buildings and shopping malls, but few are available.

She says most of these foreigners used to invest in Thailand, while others see the opportunity to generate huge sums quickly by taking over certain properties. Those who want to invest in office buildings prefer finished buildings that are already in use and able to give a return of 7 to 8 per cent. For instance, Jones Lang LaSalle expects to complete a transaction in the current quarter in which a new US investor has bought a 35,000-square-metre office building in Bangkok's central business district for Bt1.4 billion.

Suphin sees business opportunities all around her, and is ready to push Jones Lang LaSalle's high reputation among major corporate investors and institutions as well as among individual investors.

Property Reporter

 The Nation