Published on January 31, 2005

Is there life after McDonald’s? You bet, says Dej Bulsuk, who built up the multi billion-baht empire of McThai, the joint venture he formed with US hamburger giant McDonald’s 22 years ago.

“The first thing I did was to go on a long vacation and play the piano,” said Dej, 54, after announcing he was quitting as McThai’s managing director last year. The news was a bombshell in business circles, and rumours flew that internal clashes had sparked the split.

“That’s purely conjecture. I was unable to speak about the matter then as I was engaged in negotiations to sell my stake in McThai. Some newspapers took the liberty to interpret what had happened.”

“I’m still with McThai as honorary chairman, and I still head our charity arm, Ronald McDonald House Charities,” he said. “All that’s changed is I’m no longer running the daily operations.”

The entrepreneur said it was time to step out of a 20-year franchise agreement. He did not want to renew the contract and preferred to sell his stake.

“It was not like Bill Heinecke’s case with Pizza Hut some years ago,” he added, referring to a business wrangle which ended in a legal battle.

McThai was formed in 1982 when Dej was just 32. “The training took a year, and the opening of the first outlet at Amarin Plaza was no picnic either,” he recalled. Dej originally held 50 per cent of McThai, with the US chain holding the other half.

By the end of the franchise contract last year, McThai wholly owned and operated 105 McDonald’s restaurants in Thailand and employed 4,000 people. It also partially owned two other outlets in Chiang Mai.

These achievements made Dej a celebrated figure. When he sold his remaining 26-per-cent stake last year, he declined to reveal the exact amount but it is believed to be a few hundred million baht.

With his new-found freedom and capital, Dej formed a company called CCC Business Development and has opened a management training school, a real-estate development division and an information technology business.

He recently moved into a new office at Sathorn Thani Building on Sathorn Road and has yet to unpack all his boxes from his old company.

In an adjoining room to his CEO office, Dej has installed a piano.

Music is his big love, he confesses. In recent years he has made half a dozen recordings and composed tunes such as “River of Kings” and “Sunrise in Bangkok” for events such as the Apec forum held here two years ago. He has played with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the Bangkok Symphony Orchestra for his albums.

His stirring tunes could easily fit the soundtrack for a Disney movie. Dej showed some of the 400 letters from dignitaries and executives who have praised his compositions.

In all, he is grateful for the experience of running McThai. It was so rough and tough, Dej feels everything else is like a breeze.

On the surface, pushing a global-brand fast-food product may seem a risk-free, sure-thing proposition.

In truth, it was hard work and capital intensive, he said. Worse still, the chance of failure could not be underestimated.

Kentucky Fried Chicken’s first foray into Thailand in 1979 was a disaster, and the chain pulled out for lack of customers.

“That’s considering that Thailand is a ‘chicken-eating country’ as opposed to a ‘beef-eating country,’” Dej added. “The risk of failure for us was much greater.”

The investment for the first restaurant was Bt54 million, a huge amount 22 years ago. There was no way of getting around that, as the cooking equipment and food items had to be shipped in.

Then came finding locations and studying how traffic flows would affect business at the respective sites.

Finally, there was the hardest task of all – securing the properties at low rates. Because McThai would not settle for second-best spots, Dej had to aggressively negotiate with landlords, not all of whom were convinced McDonald’s was a worthy anchor tenant that could bring in the crowds to shop at their properties.

As managing director of McThai, Dej also promoted the goods of his suppliers.

Thai-made restaurant fittings, posters and Ronald McDonald figurines were of such high quality, orders from abroad have rocketed. “The value of these exports today is about Bt4 billion,” he said. “But I don’t get a penny. All the profits go to the suppliers.”

Dej said much of his work now was more socially oriented, rather than commercial. “I would like to give something back to the community,” he said.

“My training school for executives will help local managers cope with global companies and encourage them to be more aggressive. We are part of Asia’s emerging economic power. We need to sharpen our leadership skills and overcome the fear that we are second best.”

His rates are kept low. His classes charge Bt6,500 per applicant. Most of the sessions are booked by big corporations that are eager to learn from him.

Dej also sits on the boards of firms such as Amarin Plaza, Grammy and Jay Mart. “Many firms asked me to be chairman, but I just don’t have time to do that.”

Itthi C Tan

The Nation

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