Among Asian business leaders, the Cheearavanont family is certainly well known. According to the list of Bloomberg’s richest families in Asia Bloomberg in 2025, this Thai family of conglomerates is the second richest in Asia with a fortune $ 42.6 billion. Only the India Ambani family will hit, which controls Reliance Industries and have a net value of $ 90.5 billion.
The success of the Chearavanont family did not take place overnight. Their business roots take place until 1921, when Chia Ek left his hometown in southern China.
Armed with courage and determination, he settled in Bangkok in Thailand and began a modest undertaking: sale of imported vegetable seeds from his family’s activities in China to local farmers. In 1946 he formally founded a company under the name Earwhich means “prosperity towards consumers” in Thai.
From the seed store to the global conglomerate
Over time, a family company expanded beyond agriculture. The youngest son of Chia ek, Dhanin Chearavanont, appeared as a key figure, which in 1969 transformed the group Charroen Pokphand (CP) from a family enterprise into a modern global conglomerate.
Dhanin had a clear vision: a large company could not only manage family members without professional experience. He brought external management experts, while family members focused on being shareholders. This system worked efficiently, based on mutual trust, even to such an extent that three older Dhanin brothers willingly gave full operational control.
In his autobiography, Dhanin wrote that separation of property from the management was the cornerstone of success. He even forbade his children to immediately join the CP group.
His reasoning was simple, they had to “learn at the foot of the masters” before taking the rudder. As a result, his children run other business units, such as cable, retail and telecommunications television.
Boundless expansion
Under the leadership of Dhanin, the CP Group has expanded to a wide range of sectors: from agrosiness, retail trade and e-commerce telecommunications, finance, healthcare and real estate. Today, CP runs 14 business groups in 21 countries and is one of the world’s largest producers of animal food and farming.
Some of their main milestones include:
- Takeover of ping insurance in China in China (2012) in USD 9.4 billion (2012)
- Taking over the macro in USD 6.6 billion (2013)
- Takeover of Hypermarket Chains Tesco in Tesco, Thailand and Malaysia (2020)
In addition to the food sector, the CP also became a dominant player in the Thai telecommunications industry through True Corporation. In 2023, True merged with the Total Access Communications, which makes him the largest mobile operator in the country with almost 49 million subscribers.
By 2025, their digital Push became even more aggressive. Ascend Money, the FinTech CP unit, provided a license to create a virtual bank, additionally developing the Truemoney platform, which already supports 34 million users. Meanwhile, True IDC, the CP Data Center department, cooperated with the Blackrock unit to invest $ 1 billion in the next three to five years in building new data centers in Thailand.
Resistance in times of crisis
The history of CP was not without challenges. During the Asian financial crisis in 1997, Dhanin – who planned to retire – was forced to sell several key assets to repay debts, including shares at the Motorcycle Factory and the Brewery in China. Although he was difficult, he was sure of the return and indeed, in just five years, he successfully built new motorcycle and brewery operations.
Even Covid-19 Pandemia did not stop their innovation. CP has built a mask factory worth $ 3 million with the production capacity of $ 100,000, and also transferring free meals to hospitals.
Heritage and recognition
In 2017, Dhanin gave way as a general director and appointed his eldest son, Soopakij, as president, while his second son, Suphachai, took the role of CEO. Dhanin himself remained as an older chairman.
His contributions and achievements have been recognized on the international arena. In September 2024, he received the Malcolm S. Forbes Lifetime Achievement Award at the Forbes Global CEO conference, honoring him as one of the most famous entrepreneurs in Asia.
For Dhanin, the success of the CP group is not only the result of business strategies, but also the Thai support, which welcomed his family despite their foreign roots. “If we had no headquarters in Thailand, today’s CP group would not exist,” he noted.
Two other conglomerates of Southeast Asia in the top ten
In addition to the Cheearavanont family, two other families of Southeast Asia created a list of 10 richest families in Asia:
- Harto (Indonesia) – took 3rd place with a net value of USD 42.2 billion
The best known of the Djarum Group and Bank Central Asia (BCA), the Harto family began their journey in the Kretek cigarette cigarette industry before expanding to banking, real estate, technology and plantations. Brothers Robert Budi Harto and Michael Bambang Hartono are not only symbols of the revival of the cigarette industry in Indonesia, but also the powers of BCA, one of the largest banks of Southeast Asia. - Yoovidhya (Thailand) – took 8th place with a net value of USD 25.7 billion
The founders of the TCP Group, a company behind the iconic Red Bull energy drink, the Yoovidhya family began their history of success in the 70s at Chaleo Yoovidhya. The brand became a global phenomenon after cooperation with the Austrian entrepreneur Dietrich Mateschitz in 1982 under the leadership of the son of Chaleo, Chalerm Yoovidhya, the company has grown quickly, currently selling almost 13 billion cans a year around the world.
