Supachai Verapuchong is the billionaire businessman behind one of Thailand’s pharmaceutical giants, as well as numerous hotels and beverage companies. But navigating Cambodia’s ailing television industry is his biggest challenge yet

Supachai Verapuchong, 54, was born in Ratchaburi, Thailand, in December 1962. He received training from his father in the pharmaceutical business from a young age before gaining a bachelor of economics from Thammasat University, Thailand, and a master’s in business administration from Southeastern University in Washington, DC. The family business, Thai Nakorn Patana, has affiliates throughout Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, including numerous pharmaceutical companies, Sofitel hotels, Lyyon drinking water, Rhino energy drink and TV5, a Cambodian television channel. Photo: Sam Jam

Having been named on numerous Condé Nast Traveller awards lists, the elegant Sofitel Phnom Penh Phokeethra attracts its fair share of poseurs. Supachai Verapuchong, however, arrives in the hotel’s colonial-style lobby with little fanfare – despite the fact that he owns the place.

The mild-mannered Thai billionaire is a pharmaceutical tycoon first and foremost, having helped build his father’s Thai Nakorn Patana company into one of Thailand’s biggest pharma manufacturers and distributors, but he is also managing director of three Sofitel and two Novotel hotels in Cambodia and Thailand, and oversees beverage and pharma businesses in Laos and Vietnam.

However, there is one industry that is testing his business acumen to the limit: Cambodian television. As owner of TV5, one of the country’s terrestrial channels, Supachai says that the miniscule advertising revenues on offer are creating an extremely challenging landscape.

 

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