~G~

Would love to "pm" you for details but new in the forum thing = no clue on how to do that

Sounds very strange. I am the Managing Director of my company as well as an employee, and make the monthly social security payments.

We don’t have any written contract but a verbal one that says that both parts has to inform the other at least 3 month before any cancellation.

Unlike legal systems based on the English law, verbal contracts in Thailand means almost nothing.

Without a binding contract, the request to stay needs to be on a personal level rather than trying to enforce something that was said in the past. With many Thais the personal interaction, asking for "help" or "assistance" rather than demanding it, will be much more effective.

Many times I find a thread and I respond to it, only to find that I am the last person to respond to it, and it was very active before I got there.

It's simple, you're a Llort.

(The exact oposite of a Troll)

I have had the same idea as you, heart.

The main reason I did not do it was because I realized, that it would not be stress-less at all, and that it is very possible to optain the same level of return from other much more maintainable investments. I invested in a mutual fund.

And what kind of yield did your mutual fund do since the beginning of the year?

Here are three with many more to come...

Great interviews, Greg, however, I am not sure he was looking for feedbacks played in a Sunbelt-sponsored radio station (and please correct me if I'm wrong), with the MD of Sunbelt as the interviewer... Without doubting Sunbelt, when one comes to asses a company one needs to get feedback from sources a bit less dependent on, or affiliated with, that company...

For 15,000 baht one can get around a 40 sqm office. Space only - not serviced.

We have started in a serviced office - it gives easy start, I'd say good for short periods, or for those that don't employ more than one or two staff, don't hold any stock there, ok with sharing meetings space, etc.

For the long run or for bigger operations - once you grow, the costs in a serviced office skyrocket.

He told me that out of all interested parties, the best offer he received was for 5M. Now why would someone with a business that makes 5M per year sell it for that price?

Because he doesn't want to run it any more and has no better offers?

This will happen in most cases in an asset purchase as the business is losing money. Only a cash flow positive business can be evaluated by a multiple of its cash flow. If it’s negative cash flow, then the business is worth nothing in this method but of course the assets must be worth something. On average an asset purchase is 30- 50% of the asset value.

Also it can happen the cash flow is not simply high enough. The cash flow is 800,000 Baht per year. Fair market on a simple cash flow multiple is 2 million Baht but the assets for the business are 6 million. Hence on an asset basis it is worth 3 million baht max even though it is cash flow positive. You would have a business both cash flow positive and selling lower than its asset value at 3 million Baht. This has happen in a number of cases as the ROI is not 20% per year.

It doesn't make any sense. If the asset value is 6 million baht, and you pay 3 million to acquire the business including the asstes, you can just sell the assets for the 6 million, make an instant profit of 3 million baht and close the business. Obviously it is not possible to sell the assets at their claimed "value".

Real value? Not what the owner paid for it, but its market value today. Someone trying to sell assets for less than their "value" simply says that this "value" is completely theoretical.

One can find very strange listings sometimes. For example, businesses that is offered for less than the stated yearly profit. Or businesses that are sold for "less than the assets value" - this is just contradiction in terms. Or enterprises that "require no participation of the owner", but are sold "due to relocation"...

Even if the figures can be somehow verified, they are only an indication about the past. I can imagine that owners that start to see rising competition, or changing business enviornment will try to sell based on past success (e.g. real estate broker, trying to bail out due to new regulations, showing excellent results in the past years prior to those regulations).

A typical BDO structure would have a foreigner owning 49% shares and the remaining 51% owned by four BDO controlled holding companies. As holding companies, each one can have shareholdings in the other.

1 + 4 = 5. Where are two more?

What will happen to the companies assets (land 400 Sq M) when the company is deemed to be illegal?

Well, the assets have to obey the Thai law. The ground will be dissolved, it will simply dissapear in space.

Does the Train to Kanchanaburi still departs from Thonburi Railway station as in the past?

No one else any additions?

Kikker, have a look in recent threads and you will see that starting a Thai majority company in Thailand seem to have become a bit more complex than in the past.

mrroomfinder.com for ideas .... and then go look for yourself in person.

ditto that. mrroomfinder.com has plenty of apartments and is very easy to search.

A 10 minute per week update is all that's required to run it...Anyone who's interested in these types of deals, feel free to PM me.

One can only wonder why people will give up those gold mines for so little...

Of course i know the details of what i posted but i won't be revealing any of the details.

I wonder what will Mr. Greg M. Lange say about that? (M stands for Mythbuster)

What are the current difficulties to get the Work Permit + 1 year multiple entry visa?

If i invest 100k USD in the creation of my company here in BKK and can't get approved the work permit and 1 year visa, i'll get somehow in a deep shit.

I have read and heard here and there that getting the sesame (WP + 1y visa) wasn't that easy.

What are the mandatory conditions and on the other side, the criteria that would bring a reject?

Thanks for your knowledge.

Getting the company set up, getting a WP and a 1 year Visa should not be difficult.

The questions start to arise at a later stage - is the structure stable enough, long lasting, will it raise questions during your first yearly Audit.

One advice - keep it as simple as possible and within the simple law, stay away from complex legal tricks that try to bend it.

Exporting

Yes, can make money, but it's not easy.

Websites with Google adwords.

Google Adwords/Adsense is a great business model, especially for.... Google. Google keeps most of the revenues and throws some scraps to the webmasters. It is an easy, default option, for those who cannot find better paying advertisers. If you've got traffic, better focus on affiliate products / services or direct advertisers. Take ThaiVisa.com for example. This board markets good paying affiiate services: Hotels Booking and Insurance. It has got sponsors like Sunbelt. It also fills the empty spaces with Google Ads to make some extra cash, but I doubt it if even a site with this kind of traffic makes a lot from Google.

"G" based on above, are you saying the Police in Thailand should be called mafia?

By the way, as mentioned before, you have a disco, you have a higher payout than a beer bar. It could be +++ meaning 10,000 Baht for a Disco to 50,000 Baht per month. No entertainment license it can be even 100,000 Baht per month. That is as highest I have heard of. This is "nothing money" to a disco doing over a 100 million Baht a year in gross sales.

Forget the semantics. The issue here, as far as I'm concerned, is whether they pose a real problem for business owners in Thailand or not. You will agree that in the case of Ministry Of Sound they were a real problem, since you indicated the high payments to the police as one of the main reasons the place closed down.

Any bar owner I ever talked to, felt this was not corruption, but it was "security" and had no problem with it.

No problem? What about the problem of having to close down? As in http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=65201, where you said:

It was so high profile. 5 different Police groups wanted money every month. You get a raid and kills your trade. Not much money in having people stand around peeing in a bottle instead of drinking beer. (You are dead meat if one person is carrying drugs or is underage. Lots of stress worrying if your competitor is setting you up. 30 day closure if it happens. )

...

the different groups all wanting to provide security or hours that you should be making money or your customers will be peeing in a bottle while you have 200 staff being paid.

"5 different Police Groups wanting money every month" and "worrying about competitors setting you up", sounds awfully similar to mafia behaviour to me.

I am assuming this is for all new registrations and won't be made retroactive to apply to already registered companies?

That's where it gets interesting...

I would also wonder how accountable the minority shareholders are? Lets say the company goes belly up, are the minority shareholders also liable for the debt?

Shareholders, regardless if minority or majority, are accountable only to the amount they were supposed to pay in to the company capital. For example, if a shareholder holds 49% of the shares but did not pay the capital for those shares, he/she is in debt to the company and is accountable to this amount. Shareholders who are not in debt to the company (=paid for their shares) are not accountable.

I don't see how a company in Thailand will give you an advantage here. Once you get yourself into the Thai system, you add another level of complexity, which does not seem to be neccessary in your case.

Thai clients would be subject to 15% withholding tax on top of their invoice if they pay a HK supplier, but I think most would prefer to pay this amount than an extra tax charge on top of our normal charges to allow for taxation through Thailand.

If you will set a Thai company and want to move the revenues to HK, your local company will be subject to exactly the same tax, plus you will have the overhead of that company (address, taxation on manager salary, accounting, audits, administration, visits of the Revenue Department, etc...). In addition, it seems like it needs to be a Thai majority company - let's not even get into the tricky issue.

Anyway, this w/h tax is only required while paying for a foreign service provider. If you SELL the products to them directly from HK, they don't need to pay any w/h tax.

As I will be based in Thailand, I will need to setup a thai private ltd business anyway

What for?

We are advising use of more cutting edge strategies.

Which startegies?

We'll have to get more involved in a financial sense to share those "startegies"

Good move Some things are better be kept secret, eh? Gone are the times of "free advice, even from the Boss" That's the way to do it, I would not be surprised to discover that the new requirements for loan agreement came as a result of some companies over-promoting and over-exploiting them