Death of a billion-baht woman

He added that Prime Nature Group is managed by "Khun Sunattee" herself, when she was shot dead that will effect with her business.

Prime Nature Group has launch two residential projects at On-Nut and Hua Hin under the same brand 'Prime Nature Villa' since the year 2006.

The latest global recession has hit the group's business when number of foreign buyers suspended their investment in Thai property market.

However, Sunattee tried to survive from the crisis by revising down its project size. In addition, the group also set a joint venture with EG Group to develop a Bt700million condominium project at Hua Hin, Prachuab Khiri Khan. The joint venture bought 2 rai of land, which was partly of the Prime Nature Villa Hua Hin's project, worth Bt100 million.

The joint venture had focused to construct condominium on the 2-rai of land. EG Group controls 80 per cent in the joint venture and the remainder holds by Prime Nature Villa Holding.

Having the partner, it can speed up sale of the project after faced a hard period from global recession hit Thailand's economy in last year.

EG Group is a construction firm that has expanded into investment in residential projects and serviced apartments. The company owns seven apartment buildings under the Lelawadee brand, together generating between Bt1 million and Bt2 million in monthly rental income.

Property industrial expert said that Khun Sunattee is key person to drive her business when her two daughters and one son still young.

Meanwhile, The Nation has tried to contact with Kiatnakin Bank Plc's executive, who supports project loan for Prime Nature Group's project, but failed to reach him.

Sunattee created the luxury residential housing project named Prime Nature Villa on On-nut and Ladkrabang Road in conversion of the market surveys.

Market survey companies that were hired for the surveys had to conduct survey for three times and came out with the same results. The survey pointed that it should be designed to capture market prices range between Bt5-7 million on land size of 80-100 square metres per unit for middle-class customer group.

However, Sunattee didn't walk on the market survey but believed in her owned survey from her friends, who mostly preferred to have single house with large area between 2-3 rais per unit. As a result, she decided to allocate her land plot over more than 200 rais into a smaller lot of at least one rai per unit. Price of the land also depends on the area and scenery such as on the hill or along the lake, which cost the highest price of over Bt70,000 per squarewa.

Sunattee's vision was to creating the Beverly Hills of the Greater Bangkok Metropolitan area.

The location of the area (on On-nut Road) once was a well-know jet ski circuit Sundown Jet Ski Circuit with royal families and celebrities often visited. Used to be the jet ski circuit, it allow the area to have both hill and lake side landscape.

In 2003, Prime Nature Villa had been set up with the registered capital of Bt100 million to start operating single house project. The prices start at nearly Bt20 million up to Bt100 million.

The project, however, received a warm welcome for those celebrities but the sale is not steady due to uncertain economy. Normally, housing project able to close sales within 3-5 years but the luxury projects unable to accomplish on projected time.

A source in property industry said this creates direct affect to the billion-baht investment project, saying that "it would create cash flow shortage to the project as many cases are being considered in courts."

The source said it is very difficult for the project to easily close the project amid economic crisis as it capture only high-end customer. It would also come from the group's miss marketing strategy reason.

Kessara Thanyalakpark, a director of Sena Development Plc, commented on this regard yesterday that there was a higher competition in the property business. As developer each wants to have a good location, this may lead into a race for price offering.

In addition, she said the purchase and sale of lands were not quite transparent as those of stocks trading.

For Sena Development, she said it has never had any problem in buying plots of land as it used brokers to do for it. Parts of lands for developing were also from banks' non-performing assets.