As the head of Thai Asset Management Corp., the former Bank of Thailand official is charged with cleaning up nearly 700 billion baht ($16 billion) of the bad debt that continues to hobble his country’s economic progress more than four years after the Asian financial crisis. The politically ticklish government post, which Yodchai acquired last July, requires relentless negotiations with contentious CEOs, bureaucrats and bankers to find ways to dispose of the debt and sometimes involves seizing corporate assets.
But Yodchai, 55, has an escape from his daily burdens. He’s a landscape and seascape painter who has found as least one parallel between banking and art. Each, he says, depends on one’s ability to find a bright spot. “Even if it’s dark and rainy, there’s always some light. That shows the sky will clear. It means there’s still some hope,” says Yodchai, who keeps a stack of his paintings in his Bangkok office.
Some critics, of course, prefer to focus on the clouds. Although Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has staked his political future on TAMC’s success, many in the Thai business community question whether anyone can stand up to Thailand’s biggest deadbeats, some of whom boast powerful political connections.
Yodchai says he is unfazed by the intense lobbying that surrounds TAMC. “If you’re concerned about that kind of thing, you won’t come here,” he declares. Taking the job “means you’re ready to cope with anything that might come up.”
The career central banker needs all the inspiration he can muster. TAMC aims to restructure close to 70 percent of the debt by the end of this year. To meet that objective, Yodchai and his colleagues last month gave more than 1,000 debtors owing more than B300 billion just 30 days to offer their own solutions.
Yodchai says that significantly reducing Thailand’s debt load would be his “masterpiece of a lifetime.” And he believes that he can succeed: “If I didn’t think there was some light in the picture, why would I take the job?”
