Why should i invest in Thailand?

[simoh1490]

1 minute ago, kraxlhuber said:

exactly, I lost an arm and a leg trusting my wife  with  investing money here, now  she run away with all the money and I cannot do anything despite having drawn - up a Prenuptial which is virtually useless for an foreigner as the  prenuptial must be  sanctioned / certified  by the foreign ministry, which we did not perform.

I'm sorry to hear about your losses, at the risk of seeming indelicate may I suggest that is a risk that could have been mitigated if you had followed the law.

[micmichd]

53 minutes ago, kraxlhuber said:

exactly, I lost an arm and a leg trusting my wife  with  investing money here, now  she run away with all the money and I cannot do anything despite having drawn - up a Prenuptial which is virtually useless for an foreigner as the  prenuptial must be  sanctioned / certified  by the foreign ministry, which we did not perform.

Your wife might have had good reasons to run away from you.  You are not the master of the universe, and it's certainly not Thailand's duty to let you get control on the land and make a profit out of it. 

Not Thailand's fault either if you failed to make a contract in the legal manner. 

Guess you better go back to Krautland or wherever you came fr

Edited June 19, 2018 by micmichd

[lkv]

1 hour ago, simoh1490 said:

I'm sorry to hear about your losses, at the risk of seeming indelicate may I suggest that is a risk that could have been mitigated if you had followed the law.

 

35 minutes ago, micmichd said:

Your wife might have had good reasons to run away from you.  You are not the master of the universe, and it's certainly not Thailand's duty to let you get control on the land and make a profit out of it. 

Not Thailand's fault either if you failed to make a contract in the legal manner. 

Guess you better go back to Krautland or wherever you came fr

Blame the victim much?

 

A great man has once said: Pretty women should not be wearing bikini in Ko Tao, that's why they get raped and murdered.

[simoh1490]

18 minutes ago, lkv said:

 

Blame the victim much?

 

A great man has once said: Pretty women should not be wearing bikini in Ko Tao, that's why they get raped and murdered.

Objectively and fairly:

 

There was a process, it wasn't followed, it's a shame but also inescapable.

[lkv]

1 hour ago, simoh1490 said:

Objectively and fairly:

 

There was a process, it wasn't followed, it's a shame but also inescapable.

We are getting into logical fallacies.

 

In the Western world A= B and B=C means A=C

 

In Thailand, given the variables, since the rule of law is perceived differently than in Western societies, words such as "objectively" and "fairly" are inadequate by default.

[simoh1490]

1 minute ago, lkv said:

We are getting into logical fallacies.

 

In the Western world A= B and B=C means A=C

 

In Thailand, given the variables, since the rule of law is perceived differently than in Western societies, words such as "objectively" and "fairly" are inadequate by default.

I have no problem if you wish to bash Thailand, just don't do it under a pretext that one particular thing is right or wrong, simply, the poster didn't follow the process ergo, he didn't follow the law, end of.

[lkv]

13 minutes ago, simoh1490 said:

I have no problem if you wish to bash Thailand, just don't do it under a pretext that one particular thing is right or wrong, simply, the poster didn't follow the process ergo, he didn't follow the law, end of.

We are going in circles. You are using faulty logic to make these determinations, your logic being things in Thailand happen like in the US or UK or Australia etc.

 

They don't.

 

In that particular case you may be right, the troubling thing is, even if that guy had that document signed by the ministry or whatever,  if they wanted to screw him, potentially,  they would have made up something else. Or forge something, like it's been done before.

 

You can say I'm bashing Thailand, I would say people should be aware of all the factors so they can stand some chance of making educated investment decisions.

 

 

 

 

Edited June 19, 2018 by lkv

[simoh1490]

1 minute ago, lkv said:

We are going in circles. You are using faulty logic to make these determinations, your logic being things in Thailand happen like in the US or UK or Australia etc.

 

They don't.

 

In that particular case you may be right, the troubling thing is, even if that guy had that document signed by the ministry or whatever,  if they wanted to screw him, potentially,  they would have made up something else. Or forge something, like it's been done before.

 

You can say I'm bashing Thailand, I would say people should be aware of all the factors so they can stand some chance to make educated investment decisions.

 

 

 

 

 

"if that guy had that document signed by the ministry or whatever,  if they wanted to screw him, potentially,  they would have made up something else".

 

If, if, potentially,....he didn't, they didn't, there's no "if" involved - there's no "may be" about it, he didn't follow the law.

[lkv]

1 minute ago, simoh1490 said:

"if that guy had that document signed by the ministry or whatever,  if they wanted to screw him, potentially,  they would have made up something else".

 

If, if, potentially,....he didn't, they didn't, there's no "if" involved - there's no "may be" about it, he didn't follow the law.

Pff. 

 

What law? ?

 

Ok you win. It's as you say. Thailand has an excellent climate to conduct business and make investments by Western standards.

 

Wish you the best of luck with yours, I'm out ?

[5633572526]

On 6/17/2018 at 9:09 PM, JAZZDOG said:

Not without a work permit

You don’t have to have a work permit to own a company.

my friend has owned a hotel in Phuket for 20 years without one. He has a manger who takes care of the hotel and he gets his 1 year multi entry visa every year as a business owner.

[janclaes47]

2 minutes ago, 5633572526 said:

You don’t have to have a work permit to own a company.

my friend has owned a hotel in Phuket for 20 years without one. He has a manger who takes care of the hotel and he gets his 1 year multi entry visa every year as a business owner.

I may be wrong, but I think that kind of visa is only available to BOI approved businesses, so it must have been a pretty large hotel.

[JAZZDOG]

10 minutes ago, 5633572526 said:

You don’t have to have a work permit to own a company.

my friend has owned a hotel in Phuket for 20 years without one. He has a manger who takes care of the hotel and he gets his 1 year multi entry visa every year as a business owner.

How large was the hotel? In most cases he will own 49% or less and cannot be director as it involves signing docs which is work. Farang also cannot be named on a license.

[simoh1490]

16 minutes ago, JAZZDOG said:

How large was the hotel? In most cases he will own 49% or less and cannot be director as it involves signing docs which is work. Farang also cannot be named on a license.

I'm pretty certain I'm correct in saying that a Treaty of Amity business owner can be named on a license.

[janclaes47]

14 minutes ago, simoh1490 said:

I'm pretty certain I'm correct in saying that a Treaty of Amity business owner can be named on a license.

The poster didn't mention which nationality his friend was, and since there are 195 countries in the world and the amity is applicable to only 1 of those, your  comment is of no value at all.

Edited June 19, 2018 by janclaes47

[simoh1490]

12 minutes ago, janclaes47 said:

The poster didn't mention which nationality his friend was, and since there are 195 countries in the world and the amity is applicable to only 1 of those, your  comment is of no value at all.

I corrected the poster who wrote that a farang cannot be named on a license, they can.

[bouph12]

On 6/18/2018 at 4:44 PM, simoh1490 said:

It's been a while now so I can't be precise but as I recall the total charge is 2.2% although there is an exit fee of about 1%. I hold investment funds in the UK and I pay up to 1.7% there for a well-managed fund which typically returns around 12%, Lindsell Train Global, Baillie Gifford Int. and Fidelity Asia are three that spring to mind. I don't mind paying the charges as long as the returns are solid, which they are. I specifically invested in LTF's onshore because I wanted an onshore investment in THB rather than a hedged return on a foreign exchange. I don't buy trackers because there's only downside protection, there's no upside, all my funds beat the indices by a substantial margin which is something a tracker can never do - plus I like to have an on the ball fund manager who can swap out of a diversified holding at short notice and compensate for losses in other areas, again, a tracker can't do that.

Thank you, so,

 

100,000 put in that passive Lyxor tracker 3 years ago would now be worth   126,531

100,000 put in your managed fund here   3 years ago would now be worth    115,927

 

That 2.2% is making money -just not for you.

 

There's an interesting article on why people choose managed funds:

http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/if-index-funds-perform-better-why-are-actively-managed-funds-more-popular/

 

A global equity fund gives the broadest area over which a fund manager can demonstrate his skill.

 

A 10 year range gives him the chance to show how "on the ball" he is in different situations- any manager can get lucky for a year or two.

 

Data from the Spiva Europe Scorecard 2006-2016 suggests that 98% of the global equity funds marketed in Europe over this period failed to beat the global index.

 

If you think that your fund doing well this year will continue to do so, sorry but the chances aren't great. Data from the Index Fund Advisors suggests that of the 100 top performing funds in any year, only 9 of them are likely to be present in the top 100 the next year. The year after that it's likely to be 9 again - but not the same 9.

 

Changing every year to the best performing funds doesn't work, either. "Past performance is not a guarantee of future returns" is the most honest sentence in the Investment business.

 

"But my Fund manager's different!" may be true, I don't know. I'm sure I've heard something similar in Thailand before though.......

 

 

 

[simoh1490]

4 hours ago, bouph12 said:

Thank you, so,

 

100,000 put in that passive Lyxor tracker 3 years ago would now be worth   126,531

100,000 put in your managed fund here   3 years ago would now be worth    115,927

 

That 2.2% is making money -just not for you.

 

There's an interesting article on why people choose managed funds:

http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/if-index-funds-perform-better-why-are-actively-managed-funds-more-popular/

 

A global equity fund gives the broadest area over which a fund manager can demonstrate his skill.

 

A 10 year range gives him the chance to show how "on the ball" he is in different situations- any manager can get lucky for a year or two.

 

Data from the Spiva Europe Scorecard 2006-2016 suggests that 98% of the global equity funds marketed in Europe over this period failed to beat the global index.

 

If you think that your fund doing well this year will continue to do so, sorry but the chances aren't great. Data from the Index Fund Advisors suggests that of the 100 top performing funds in any year, only 9 of them are likely to be present in the top 100 the next year. The year after that it's likely to be 9 again - but not the same 9.

 

Changing every year to the best performing funds doesn't work, either. "Past performance is not a guarantee of future returns" is the most honest sentence in the Investment business.

 

"But my Fund manager's different!" may be true, I don't know. I'm sure I've heard something similar in Thailand before though.......

 

 

 

I haven't checked your math but I'm sure the numbers are correct if you say they are. 

 

I'm not trying to get into a managed fund vs a tracker debate, people have their own reasons for choosing as they do. I'm holding CG-LTF for example,( amongst others) because I had large amounts of THB in banks here which I wanted to make more productive hence there is no exchange rate risk for me, that is money that in THB and will not be converted back to another currency nor exported again - I live in Thailand, I spend THB, I need to hold and earn THB. If I were to invest that money in say an offshore tracker I would need to convert it into a foreign currency and later convert it back to THB, both of which have associated costs. Also, a product such as an LTF here is tax deductible hence the charges can all be deducted from income tax plus the gains are not taxable income, if held for seven years, the cost of owning the fund is therefore not 2.2% but instead is 0%! I hope that helps explain.

[simoh1490]

Since my mind was just thinking about investments and I'd just written the previous post, a couple of other thoughts whilst I'm at it!

 

One of the biggest emerging financial risks in Thailand recently is the volume of-retail funds invested in FIF's, Foreign Investment Funds, so much so that BOT is now tracking that volume as a retail statistic. FIF's are overseas funds of the sort that I might invest in via the UK, managed funds and similar except a majority it seems are located in the Middle East and China (think volatility), the amount of money invested is now in the trillions of baht and most of these enter via feeder funds from banks who sell mutual fund accounts to their customers. They are not cheap and they are not geographically spread hence the risk seems to me to be quite high. There'a also an exchange rate risk since those funds are not invested in THB and at some point retail investors will want to cash in. Contrast that with say my current ways of investing offshore where I can decide my high level allocation by asset class, decide on the geographic allocations and spread the funds by country/region and then spread even further by selecting industry types, avoiding the dogs of the indices which invariably bring down the returns.

 

But the offshore investment market in Thailand doesn't seem to be very mature and there don't seem to be many options for locals to do what I'm doing offshore. I'm a relative newbie to this area but I have looked at Aberdeen locally which offers onshore investors the opportunity to invest offshore through a broker but their charges seem quite high as indeed onshore brokerage charges are across the board here. So exchanging offshore money into THB, just to invest, really does need to factor in the exchange rate risk and consider the longer term needs for those funds and in which currency. If you import say Pounds, exchange into Baht, invest and then at a later date convert back into Pounds, you'll need a lot of luck to make a competitive profit since FOREX charges and fund/bank fees will eat up most of it. If however those funds are destined to remain here for the longer term, life becomes cheaper since you have no FOREX risk.

 

https://fundselectorasia.com/thailands-foreign-fund-assets-15/

Edited June 19, 2018 by simoh1490

[simoh1490]

5 hours ago, bouph12 said:

Thank you, so,

 

100,000 put in that passive Lyxor tracker 3 years ago would now be worth   126,531

100,000 put in your managed fund here   3 years ago would now be worth    115,927

 

That 2.2% is making money -just not for you.

 

There's an interesting article on why people choose managed funds:

http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/if-index-funds-perform-better-why-are-actively-managed-funds-more-popular/

 

A global equity fund gives the broadest area over which a fund manager can demonstrate his skill.

 

A 10 year range gives him the chance to show how "on the ball" he is in different situations- any manager can get lucky for a year or two.

 

Data from the Spiva Europe Scorecard 2006-2016 suggests that 98% of the global equity funds marketed in Europe over this period failed to beat the global index.

 

If you think that your fund doing well this year will continue to do so, sorry but the chances aren't great. Data from the Index Fund Advisors suggests that of the 100 top performing funds in any year, only 9 of them are likely to be present in the top 100 the next year. The year after that it's likely to be 9 again - but not the same 9.

 

Changing every year to the best performing funds doesn't work, either. "Past performance is not a guarantee of future returns" is the most honest sentence in the Investment business.

 

"But my Fund manager's different!" may be true, I don't know. I'm sure I've heard something similar in Thailand before though.......

 

 

 

Apologies, I wrote that Lindsell Train returned 12%, in fact they returned 19.8%, I wasn't really paying attention to returns when I wrote that, more about the underlying argument: https://markets.ft.com/data/funds/tearsheet/risk?s=IE00B3NS4D25:GBP

 

And Fundsmith returned 14% whilst Fidelity Asia gave back 14% also, Baillie Gifford Int. returned 16%.

[Senseo]

On 6/19/2018 at 5:59 AM, micmichd said:

Good morning. You thought it over? 

You should invest in Thailand simply because that's where you decided to live. 

Things might not run perfect, but - did anything ever run perfect? 

Stay away from the idea that you ever get perfect control over your environment. Just take what you find, and try to make the best out of it. 

You could invest in your kids' education, your Thai lady's ability to stand on her own feet, a shoe facory (run by Thais), or whatsoever. 

Remember this is Thailand, literally the land of the free, and Thais will certainly do what they want. Don't even try to impose Western values on them. Take a look at the West - things are not running perfectly in the West, are they? 

 

You have obviously already made your decision. So, trust yourself, and commit to your decision. 

Once you're over your cognitive dissonance, you can ask *where* to invest in Thailand - but that would be another question.

 

All these posters certainly gave me something to think about. I think i've got one advantage and that is that i got a Thai friend whom i dearly trust. We've already got few businesses together in the west so why not create another one in Thailand. Every post gave me the impression that everyone wants to screw you over in Thailand. You can trust no one and if you do trust someone, be ready to get screwed over. We're both quite annoyed by the corruption and the laws. Specially because we foremost try to be good men and having so much corruption makes everything toxic. 

 

My conclusion:

 

There are a lot of red flags here but that's what we expected from a developing country. What i like about developing countries is that there is always so many things to do, so many opportunities, so many things in which they can improve in and we can help. 

 

Is it still possible to invest/create businesses? Certainly but be very cautious. 

 

The focus of wealth is certainly in Bangkok metropolitan area but i would like to provide work opportunities for locals, professionalism, careers, insurances and more in less known area's so we can all grow in good ways. 

 

What i need to know before i can continue:

 

- Do i have to pay someone under the table in order to invest and create businesses? 

- Whom can i trust other than my friend and business partner?

- Where are the good lawyers?

- Thai laws: Inheritance Laws, foreign possession laws, etc.

- What kind of contracts are there in order to legally secure my possessions?

- etc.

 

Edited June 20, 2018 by Senseo

[simoh1490]

17 hours ago, Senseo said:

 

All these posters certainly gave me something to think about. I think i've got one advantage and that is that i got a Thai friend whom i dearly trust. We've already got few businesses together in the west so why not create another one in Thailand. Every post gave me the impression that everyone wants to screw you over in Thailand. You can trust no one and if you do trust someone, be ready to get screwed over. We're both quite annoyed by the corruption and the laws. Specially because we foremost try to be good men and having so much corruption makes everything toxic. 

 

My conclusion:

 

There are a lot of red flags here but that's what we expected from a developing country. What i like about developing countries is that there is always so many things to do, so many opportunities, so many things in which they can improve in and we can help. 

 

Is it still possible to invest/create businesses? Certainly but be very cautious. 

 

The focus of wealth is certainly in Bangkok metropolitan area but i would like to provide work opportunities for locals, professionalism, careers, insurances and more in less known area's so we can all grow in good ways. 

 

What i need to know before i can continue:

 

- Do i have to pay someone under the table in order to invest and create businesses? 

- Whom can i trust other than my friend and business partner?

- Where are the good lawyers?

- Thai laws: Inheritance Laws, foreign possession laws, etc.

- What kind of contracts are there in order to legally secure my possessions?

- etc.

 

Nobody has answered your post so let me respond to the parts of your post where I have views/insight:

 

You probably need to define what you mean by invest/create business because the answers to your questions will change based on that definition.

 

Good lawyers are not easy to find, even the Embassy lists of recommended lawyers are not always great - perhaps ask around amongst other foreign business owners.

 

Contracts to secure possessions: as a foreigner, you can only own 49% of any business here, unless you are an American, another alternative if you can afford it is the BOI scheme but that requires large capital. You can own a condo. 100% and a usufruct is reliable for securing property ownership.

 

Almost everyone here seems to pay somebody to do business at some point or another, the variable is probably the type of business you get into. I read recently about a foreigner who had operated a successful export business here for many years but a large part of his profit relied on getting reimbursed by The Revenue for tax paid on components. It seems that one day the Revenue didn't like the idea of paying out so much money to this guy and told him that if he continued to claim, he would be subject to a detailed tax audit. That's the sort of thing you're up against, potentially.

 

My best advice is that you spend six or twelve months here as a visitor before committing to do anything businesswise, in that time you can talk to lots of other business owners and get first-hand insight, then you can make an informed decision.

[xylophone]

21 hours ago, Senseo said:

What i need to know before i can continue:

 

- Do i have to pay someone under the table in order to invest and create businesses? 

- Whom can i trust other than my friend and business partner?

- Where are the good lawyers?

- Thai laws: Inheritance Laws, foreign possession laws, etc.

- What kind of contracts are there in order to legally secure my possessions?

- Do i have to pay someone under the table in order to invest and create businesses?

Very often yes…….and even a bank manager asked me for a “tip” after he agreed a loan to a Thai lady who wanted to buy my house.

 

 - Whom can i trust other than my friend and business partner?

Here, you can trust no-one, esp where money is concerned

 

- Where are the good lawyers?

Dotted around the place along with the “not so good lawyers”. Remember that thousands of farangs have used Thai nominee companies in order to “own” their property and these illegal structures have been set up by……Thai lawyers!

 

- Thai laws: Inheritance Laws, foreign possession laws, etc.

Investigate, read, inwardly digest and understand them yourself, then seek advice, and remember that you can still be screwed over if someone has a mind to do it.

 

- What kind of contracts are there in order to legally secure my possessions?

You can “legally secure” many things until someone decides otherwise, then you are stuffed.

 

Remember that the Land Office officials and the BIB have been cited as the most corrupt departments in Thailand,  so what does that tell you!

 

 

Edited June 21, 2018 by xylophone