Working On 2 Businesses At The Same Time

[simon43]

I recently opened a new hotel/guesthouse with my Thai wife. The company structure is a ltd partnership, with her holding the majority of the shares. I am employed as hotel manager and am just getting my wp, based on a monthly salary of 100,000 baht.

The primary reason for this employment and relatively high salary(!) is so that I start paying tax and have a worthy employment - with a view to applying for PR in a few years from now.

However, my employment still gives me time to pursue other business interests in Phuket. I am looking to start another small venture that is based at my hotel premises, but is not related to the hotel business. (It is the printing and distribution of 'farang' newspapers for hotels etc - a business/franchise for which I have the relevant licences from the overseas parent company).

Do I need to form another Thai company to operate this 2nd business? Or could that be done within the existing (non-related) hotel business? If the latter, is it possible to operate a different trading name for the newspaper distribution business, and receive/bank cheques and other payments in that second business name?

And what about the WP? Or should I just add these new tasks to my job description at the hotel?

I don't want to form a second business entity if this can be avoided. But also, I don't want to operate this 2nd business using the existing entity if this is too restrictive/causes administrative/operating problems etc.

Any advice much appreciated

Simon

[Cyberstar]

Since you're talking about shares I'll assume you're talking about co., ltd. rather than ltd partnership, which I know next to nothing about. As for co., ltd.'s I'm no expert neither, so don't take the following as more than some thoughts to consider.

In general an existing Thai company can expand its operations to include an undertaking on even a very different field. It might have to add the new undertaking to its "Articles of association" and modify other paperworks. As for the WP - in this case it's only a matter of adding to your jobdescription. However, the circumstance that we're specifically talking about running a hotel and something with newspapers, sort of makes a red light blink a bit. Particularly, in light of the newly drafted changes. Isn't newspaper stuff on the tough list 1 and hotel business on the more relaxed list 3 (and even exempted from some of the general requirements). How would a company with one leg in the hot area an one leg in the cooler, be considered by authorities ... I don't have a clue, but it is one thing you should be clear about before making decision.

If you decide to make a second company, it'll ease matters to register it in the same province as the first one. In this case you'll not need a second WP neither, you can just add the new employer, work-location and tasks to the one you've already got ... As for forming the new company, there is a shortcut in the circumstance that your existing company can be a Thai shareholder. (I have no idea with what percentage in relation to other foreign shares in order to make the new company count as Thai).

[thaigerd]

Simon,

does your newspaper co. operate already?

Send some detatils to my company's email address.

Gerd

[simon43]

Cyberstar, thanks for your comments. The newspaper activity actually doesn't fall into list 1. It is simply the authorised reprinting of an existing foreign newspaper, as opposed to actually producing/editing a newspaper in Thailand.

Re using the existing Thai company as a shareholder in the new company, that sounds like a good idea. I'll need to find out what % etc is required.

Simon

[Cyberstar]

Printing and distrubution of foreign newspaper in Thailand doesn't sound unproblematic. Have you pondered into censorship, martial law, etc. ? Certainly, the generals wouldn't like to see distribution of devastating articles on their rulings in favor of that other guy ... Or is the newspaper totally a-politic, void of barebreasted ladies, whisky ads and smoking rockstars?

[junkofdavid2]

I recently opened a new hotel/guesthouse with my Thai wife. The company structure is a ltd partnership, with her holding the majority of the shares. I am employed as hotel manager and am just getting my wp, based on a monthly salary of 100,000 baht.

The primary reason for this employment and relatively high salary(!) is so that I start paying tax and have a worthy employment - with a view to applying for PR in a few years from now.

However, my employment still gives me time to pursue other business interests in Phuket. I am looking to start another small venture that is based at my hotel premises, but is not related to the hotel business. (It is the printing and distribution of 'farang' newspapers for hotels etc - a business/franchise for which I have the relevant licences from the overseas parent company).

Do I need to form another Thai company to operate this 2nd business? Or could that be done within the existing (non-related) hotel business? If the latter, is it possible to operate a different trading name for the newspaper distribution business, and receive/bank cheques and other payments in that second business name?

And what about the WP? Or should I just add these new tasks to my job description at the hotel?

I don't want to form a second business entity if this can be avoided. But also, I don't want to operate this 2nd business using the existing entity if this is too restrictive/causes administrative/operating problems etc.

Any advice much appreciated

Simon

When you register a company, you register a list of company objectives as well. Unfortunately, your existing company does not have newsprint distribution as one of it's objectives. What I did was to simply ask Sunbelt to "add additional objective" to the current registered objectives and voila! It was okay.

Not sure if that would apply to your business, but you can ask. If I remember correctly, Sunbelt charged me between 6 to 8 thousand, already including the government fee.

[simon43]

Hi Cyberstar, this printing/distribution business has already been operating in LoS for many years without any problems! So I don't envisage a stay in the BKK Hilton

Simon