Starting Thai Ltd company

Hi everyone,

I've got a couple of general questions at the moment. I'm going into a venture with a friend to start up a specialty business here. Fortunately I have Thai citizenship but my friend is not. They will be the 48% shareholder in this, his foreign wife 1% while I'll hold 51%.

A couple of questions as I've never approached establishing a business here with foreign interests. Our main goal is to go via the BOI smart visa scheme for my friend to get the work rights here, however the BOI have advised us that one of the ways to make the application stronger is to have a plan to start a limited company here to show that the application is serious. We also view it as good 'plan B' should the smart visa application be denied.

So thinking ahead a little in the eventuality of 'Plan B':

- Does having a shareholding in a Thai business in and of itself allow one to get a non-immigrant 'B' visa? If not, what else will be needed?

- Similarly, I understand foreigners can't undertake the duties of a director here without a work permit. However, given my friend travels alot, can they undertake these duties offshore (eg signing company documents) and still be legal?

- How soon, conceptually, will we need to hire the 4 Thai's etc to get a work permit (yes, we have the 2MB paid up capital to do this).

Many thanks in advance for your help and ideas. Appreciate also there might be some skeptical posts, but just as background I'm a Thai citizen, have been on the ground here since 2000 full time, I run my own business here already and have interests in others. This is a legit business we are putting together so from that side, I know what I am doing. Just not sure on how it all fits in when you need to deal with non-Thai's from a paperwork perspective.