[1] The Sirivadhanabhakdi family is now Thailand's largest property developer and landlord of 630,000 rai (101,000 ha; 250,000 acres), plus commercial and retail buildings in Singapore.
[2] He also owns 50 hotels in Asia, the US, UK, and Australia, including Plaza Athénée in Manhattan, New York City, US, and The Okura Prestige Bangkok.
[4] Born to a Thai Chinese family in 1944, Charoen is the sixth of eleven children of a poor street vendor who migrated to Bangkok from Shantou.
With this monopoly, Charoen's beverage companies were able to return US$550 million in royalties to Thailand's excise department in 1987, five percent of the national budget at the time.
In early-2013, Charoen won a bidding war for Singapore's Fraser and Neave, Ltd. which has properties throughout Asia as well as soft-drinks operations, with debt accounting for most of the US$11.2 billion price.
[16] In late-2015, rumours emerged that Charoen was close to completing a takeover of English Premier League side Everton, a club which Chang Beer has sponsored since 2004.
[21] Thai royal decorations: Honorary doctorates: Prem Tinsulanonda, the former military general and prime minister of Thailand who sat on ThaiBev's board of directors in the early-2000s, helped rescue Charoen's Surathip Group, the distributor of Chang beer, in 1986.
[24] Since the Asian financial crisis of 1997 and attempts to further liberalize Thailand's competition laws in 1999, Charoen has on occasion been able to use his political connections to increase his dominance over the country's alcohol industry.
He was reportedly able to do this due to his increasing clout since the Asian financial crisis, which saw him rescue hundreds of politically connected, debt-ridden Thai companies and projects.
This includes the acquisition of the large Bangkok IT shopping mall, Pantip Plaza from Chalermchai Vaseenont, who set regulations for the local liquor industry in his capacity as a former director general of the country's excise department at the Ministry of Finance.
Boon Rawd Brewery, the producer of Singha beer, complained to Thailand's Fair Trade Department in October 2000 about Charoen's dumping of cheap products on the market, which the company claimed impeded competition.
Charoen was warned that his actions were "inappropriate"; however, the department eventually ruled in his favour after claiming that no law had been violated as regulations regarding the issue had not yet been finalised.