Centara Hotels & Resorts, a leading hotel operator in Thailand, yesterday announced the appointment of Yupapone Vorapongsukonth as corporate PR director, effective June 11.

“Centara is entering a significant phase of growth to double its revenues in the next five years. Brand and PR communications will go hand in hand to reinforce our position as a prominent hospitality name both in Thailand and internationally” said Centara’s CEO, Thirayuth Chirathivat. “Yupapone is a proven leader with extensive communication skills, branding vision and great understanding of the digital media landscape. Her expertise will help us drive increased brand awareness and raise the profile of Centara Hotels & Resorts globally. We are excited about her important contribution to the company.” added Thirayuth.

PRM TO BUY OUT BIG SEA

PRM has bought a 70 per cent holding for Bt1.4 billion in Big Sea, a major domestic maritime petroleum transportation service company, and will acquire the remaining 30 per cent gradually over a three-year period for approximately Bt800 million.

The combined project value is expected to range between Bt2 billion and Bt2.3 billion (depending on business performances), and the IRR to reach 11.7 per cent. The capacity of PRM to perform maritime crude oil transportation will be enhanced, and with new customers from Big Sea, its market share will jump to 49 per cent. The acquisition will strengthen PRM’s business in the long run and allow the company to benefit from the growing domestic oil transportation industry.

Acting Sub-Lieutenant Chanwit Anakkul, chief executive of Prima Marine Public Company Limited (PRM), Thailand’s top provider of integrated floating storage services for crude oil, petroleum, condensate residue and liquefied petrochemical products, as well as services involving offshore support vessels and fleet management for oil and petrochemical industry, to domestic and international customers in the Asia-Pacific region, revealed that PRM has completed the initial purchase of 252,000 shares in Big Sea Co, or 70 per cent of the target firm’s shares, for approximately Bt1.4 billion, which will allow the former to book the latter’s revenue and profit immediately, starting from the third quarter of tis year, and improve its second half year results dramatically.

In the second phase, PRM will gradually buy the remaining 108,000 shares in Big Sea, or 30 per cent of the latter’s shares, from TWATT Limited, by acquiring 10 per cent per year over a period of three years, subject to the latter’s satisfactory performance.

Based on current data, the share purchases in the second phase are projected to be completed by 2021 and require not more than Bt800 million in investment cost.The chief executive added that the acquisition of Big Sea shares will double PRM’s capacity in the transport vessel segment, enable the company to become the top provider of domestic maritime oil transportation service (with a 49 per cent share in the market) and increase its capacity to manage additional five billion liters of products per year and to better respond to customers’ requirements. For example, its market shares will leap from 15 per cent to 43 per cent for Chevron, from 19 per cent to 64 per cent for Shell, from 19 per cent to 52 per cent for IRPC and from 67 per cent to 69 per cent for PTT. It will also win a market share of 37 per cent – in terms of volume of oil transported by vessels – for Bangchak as a new customer.