When Kan Trakulhoon, chief executive of Thailand’s Siam Cement Group, wanted to buy Indonesian petrochemical company Chandra Asri a decade ago, he courted the owners assiduously.
The Harvard-educated Trakulhoon was no stranger to Indonesia, having spent a stint in Jakarta during the throes of the Asian financial crisis in 1997.
However, he had little luck convincing the owners to sell.
“Many years ago in 2004, 2005, I myself went to the management and owner of this company more than 10 times in order to acquire this company Chandra Asri but they didn’t want to sell,” recalls Trakulhoon in a phone interview with...
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