Thailand Wins Key Liverpool Stake

[DaveYo]

The patience of the Thais is absolutely amazing,

When is enough enough?

Well my friend you have literally answered your own question!!!! Only when the Thai people run out of patience, which obviously they have is very high tolerance before it reaches their heads. As to when, who knows??????

Daveyo

[george]

The Thai prime minister, the English soccer club and the branded rattan laundry basket

BANGKOK: -- Put a maverick leader in a corner and he'll respond by doing something spectacular.

Earlier this year, when a bird flu outbreak stalled exports of Thailand's poultry, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra took his cabinet to a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant in Bangkok just to prove Thai fowls were safe.

Now the policeman who became a billionaire businessman who became a politician may have found a stunning way to wriggle out of his political and economic discomforts.

Liverpool FC, England's most successful soccer club, has in principle accepted the Thai offer of $106 million (about R696 million) for a 30 percent stake.

The government of Thailand will raise the money by selling lottery tickets and shares in the company that will hold the stake. The lottery will have a top prize of 1 billion baht (R164 million).

Mark Matthews, the head of Thai equity sales at CLSA in Bangkok, offers a good explanation for Thaksin's interest in a soccer club. If the deal goes through, whenever Thais root for Liverpool they'll feel like they're rooting for Thailand.

"If that in turn boosts confidence and consumption," Matthews said, "there you go."

The soccer club may also divert attention from two of the Thai prime minister's biggest problems.

Thailand's Muslim-dominated southern provinces are a source of disquiet in a country where nine out of 10 people are Buddhists. Last month soldiers and police killed 108 rebels in an eight-hour battle.

Thaksin's other challenge is the southbound market. Investors who couldn't buy enough in Thailand in 2003 (when the SET index was the world's third best performer) seem to have lost their nerve, partly because of the violence and the expectation that higher oil prices will slow the economy in the second half.

The SET index is down 23 percent this year in dollar terms, making Thailand the world's worst-performing equity market. On Tuesday, the finance ministry cut the economy's growth forecast for this year to 7.1 percent from February's estimate of 7.9 percent. The economy expanded 6.7 percent last year.

Owning Liverpool might indeed cause a rise in consumption

. And a shared passion for soccer could unite Muslims with Buddhists.

Is this a plausible scenario? Or is Thailand buying a white elephant?

Thaksin's spokesperson, Jakrapob Penkair, cites the gains that will be reaped as Thailand secures marketing rights for Liverpool merchandise across Asia.

Thaksin says his one-village one-product programme, through which the Thai government promotes locally made handicrafts, would get a boost from piggybacking on a brand.

A Liverpool zip-through jacket retails for $72. Thaksin, it may appear, couldn't have found a better way to take the money of soccer-crazy Asian teenagers.

Wait a minute. Thai villagers can't make Liverpool long-sleeve shirts or flip-flop slippers or suit carriers. For economies of scale, these products will be made in factories, which will invariably come up in cities like Bangkok.

Thai villagers make ceramic pots and carve walking sticks. Will the Liverpool logo work on a flowery Thai silk shirt? Who'll buy a Liverpool-branded rattan laundry basket?

"It's a high-risk investment," says Nizam Idris, the Singapore-based deputy head of Asian research at IDEAglobal.

"So much depends on the players. It's totally out of your control."

It's bizarre that Thailand should export capital to a British football club even as it seeks foreign direct investment to build new factories and create jobs at home.

Will the move help Thaksin's re-election campaign next year?

It might win him more support in Bangkok, where many people will lap up the chance to own a part of Liverpool. Still, only 15 percent of Thailand's 64 million people live in Bangkok. The poor people of southern Thailand would prefer a new road in their area to a new soccer stadium in Liverpool bought with the nation's savings.

If Thaksin requires further proof, he need only look to the drubbing that the government of Atal Bihari Vajpayee recently got from Indian voters because the poor among them felt ignored by what they perceived as pro-rich policies.

-- Bloomberg 2004-05-30

[ubergnome]

It's bizarre that Thailand should export capital to a British football club even as it seeks foreign direct investment to build new factories and create jobs at home.

-- Bloomberg 2004-05-30

Excellent choice of words.

Privatize public utilities, but invest public funds in a foreign sports team.

Bizarre, truly.

[ThaiPauly]

Graffiti written on a wall near Anfiled reads

"You'll Never Wai Alone" (Source Bangkok Post 29th May)

I think that selling Emile Hesky is the BEST news to come out of Anfield

reminds me of the England team joke.

Whenever they fly abroad, David James as goalkeeper sits at the back just behind the Nevilles, Ashley Cole Wayne Bridge John Terry and Sol Campbell, David Beckham sits in the middle with Paul Scoles,Frank Lampard and Joe Cole while Michael Owen is right up the front with Wayne Rooney, Emile Heskey wanders backwards and forwards up the aisle looking for a suiltable place where he would fit in!!

[dr_Pat_Pong]

Off again, on again, off again.on again. A peculiar fellow is Dr Thaksin. And the Thai treasury seems to be part of His Excellency's private warchest

[kurgen]

Off again, on again, off again.on again. A peculiar fellow is Dr Thaksin. And the Thai treasury seems to be part of His Excellency's private warchest

It's called slight of hand.

Whilst we have all been avidly watching the Liverpool saga , the big cheese has managed to solve all the problems of the southern provinces and solve the drug problem.

Now that,s what I call magic

[dekThai]

waste of money!