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Published on March 21, 2008

Property firm Sansiri has sound financials, a strong brand image and a team which could make the company a market leader within the next two or three years, the company's president Srettha Thavisin said.

The company is the second largest in terms of revenue among real-estate developers listed on the Stock Exchange of Thailand.

Since the economic crisis of 1997, the company has strengthened its resources to take on the market leaders, Srettha said.

"When we looked at our strategy, we analysed whether the resources at our disposal were healthy enough to achieve our goal."

The first resource necessary to drive its growth was capital.

Srettha said the company now has Bt8 billion of total capital, of which Bt6.3 billion came from paid-up capital and the rest from its cash flow. The company's financial health is also helped by its low debt-to-equity ratio, which is lower than 1:1.

The second resource was building a brand strong enough to grab customer mindshare and create sustainable growth for the business.

"We believe that our brand ranks among the top three in the minds for home-buyers," he said.

The third resource Sansiri needed was the manpower which had the ability to drive the business to achieve its goal. The company took nearly ten years to nurture professionals driven toward its goal.

"Now, we believe our fundamentals are strong enough to achieve the goal of becoming the market leader within two to three years," Srettha said.

"We are also ready to create more value for our shareholders, customers and our employees," he said.

Sansiri is one of the few real-estate companies which has been posting a net profit of less than 10 per cent of its revenues, while most rivals net around 15 per cent.

"Our business was generating low net profits in the past five years because we had set aside a huge marketing budget for brand-building and preparing our human resources," Srettha said.

"But now we believe our brand is strong and our human resources robust enough to be a market leader. We will now reduce our marketing budget, which will, in part, raise our profit margins this year."

Somluck Srimalee

The Nation

      At a glance

n Sansiri is the second largest company in terms of revenue among developers listed on the Stock Exchange of Thailand.

n The company has strong financial health helped by its low debt-to-equity ratio.

n It has spent the past ten years building its human resources to take the lead in a highly competitive market.