Thai Energy Billionaire Becomes Kasikornbank's Third-Largest Shareholder
Gulf Development—controlled by billionaire Sarath Ratanavadi-has increased its stake in Kasikornbank—making the energy and telecommunications giant the lender's third-largest shareholder.
Bangkok-listed Gulf Development bought an additional 0.5% stake in Kasikornbank, raising its stake in Thailand's third-largest bank by assets to 5.2%, the company said in a regulatory filing.
The investment is part of the continuing diversification strategy at Gulf Development, a power producer founded by Sarath in 2007. Since then the company has grown to become one of Thailand's largest conglomerates with interests in telecommunications, and digital infrastructure. It is the second-biggest shareholder of Advanced Info Service, Thailand's No. 2 mobile carrier by revenue.
Beyond traditional financial services, Kasikornbank provides Gulf a potential virtual banking platform. Kasikornbank also owns a 38.3% stake in non-listed Muang Thai Life Assurance, which generated 5.6 billion baht ($169 million) net profit on 91.9 billion baht in revenues in 2024.
'We see this as a strategic long-term positioning move. Gulf is evolving into a national-scale infrastructure conglomerate—now covering power, telecom, satellite, banking, and potentially life insurance,' said Wetid Tangjindakun, analyst at KGI Securities (Thailand). 'Given the scarcity of quality growth names in Thai equities, Gulf stands out as a proxy for Thailand's structural digital and infrastructure evolution.'
Gulf has been scaling up its investments in digital infrastructure. Last June, it partnered with Alphabet's Google to build artificial intelligence-powered cloud facilities in Thailand. Gulf Binance, a partnership between Gulf Energy and billionaire Chanpeng Zhao's Binance, started a crypto currency exchange in Thailand last year.
With a real-time net worth of $12.9 billion, Sarath is among the wealthiest in Thailand. Bulf of his fortunes comes from his stake in Gulf, which has a market capitalization of about $22 billion.
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