Suthikiati Chirathivat yesterday succeeded in holding on to his management power at Post Publishing after shareholders voted to add his son-in-law and a representative from GMM Media to the board of directors.

With two new directors, the number of seats on Post Publishing's board was increased to 16. The outcome of the shareholders' meeting, the first since GMM Media, a GMM Grammy Plc unit, bought a 23.6-stake in Post Publishing last year, showed that Suthikiati is still in charge after the first round of boardroom power play.

Post Publishing publishes the Bangkok Post and Post Today newspapers.

During the shareholders' meeting at the headquarters of Post Publishing in Klong Toei, Suthikiati yesterday showed that he was still the master of his house. He presided over the shareholders' meeting with confidence.

In spite of its huge stake, GMM Media was only able to muster one board representative. Earlier there was talk that GMM Media would like to have at least two seats on the board.

Suthikiati, who owns 105.3 million shares (21 per cent) in Post Publishing Plc, has teamed up with South China Morning Post Group Ltd, which owns another 116.3 million shares (23.4 per cent). Together with South China Morning Post's senior representative Maria Nancy Valiente, Suthikiati asked that shareholders approve the increase in the number of board seats.

One new director is Supakorn Vejjajiva, 38, marketing director of Post Publishing and Suthikiati's son-in-law. Supakorn was recently promoted to deputy chief operating officer at Post Publishing.

The other director, 48-year-old Chai Nasylvanta, is an independent director and audit-committee member of GMM Grammy. Chai was formerly an investment banker, who used to work for Bangkok Bank.

Paiboon Damrongchaitham, the entertainment tycoon and chairman of GMM Grammy, created an uproar last year by making audacious bids for both Matichon Publishing and Post Publishing. The bid for Matichon was met with a social backlash with civic groups coming out to defend the firm against Paiboon, who was forced to yield and sold the shares back to Khanchai Boonpan.

But Paiboon's bid for Post Publishing did not receive the same type of reaction, making it possible for him to continue his efforts to take control of the blue-chip company.

Suthikiati vowed to ward off Paiboon's bid at any cost, even by wooing support from South China Morning Post.

At the shareholder's meeting yesterday, there was not any mention of business cooperation between Post Publishing and GMM Grammy. Suthikiati conducted the meeting as if GMM Grammy did not exist.

Sumeth Damrongchaitham, director of GMM Grammy, had to be content with his first Post Publishing shareholders' meeting. He said the outcome of the meeting was okay and that the admission of two new board members was acceptable.

"Khun Chai is a smart guy and is well accepted in the business community. He was also the person selected by our group [GMM Grammy] in the beginning to sit on the Post Publishing board," said Sumeth.

Sumeth remained silent throughout the shareholders' meeting.

"It is not important whether we have one or four members on the board of directors at Post Publishing. Our goal is to give them valuable and creative advice in managing the publishing firm, as well as creating any synergy possibilities in the future between Post Publishing and GMM Grammy," said Sumeth.

Suthikiati said that despite the economic slowdown driven by the rise in oil prices in the world market, as well as the increase in paper cost by 25 per cent, both Bangkok Post and Post Today were able to achieve a better business performance than other publishing firms.

"Post Today is now the number one business newspaper in the market place in terms of readership, leading Manager Daily and Krungthep Turakij, according to a Suan Dusit Poll released on February 20," said Suthikiati.

He said that Post Publishing had also invested Bt1.1 billion in its new printing house, located on a 20-rai land plot on Bang Na-Trat road. It is the first German KBA printing facility in Asia, which should help the company increase printing capacity from the current 30,000 copies per hour to more than 70,000.

"We will move both Bangkok Post and Post Today to be printed at our new printing facility, which will use the 'computer-to-plate' system and start its operations by the end of this year. The new printing facility will allow the company to increase the number of sections in its newspapers, as well as enjoy colour screens on any pages," said Suthikiati.

Post Publishing posted revenue of Bt1.82 billion last year, down a mere Bt14 million from 2004. The company achieved a net profit of Bt123 million last year, down 37 per cent from the previous year. The drop in net profit was from a 4- to 5-per-cent decline in advertising revenues last year and an increase of the cost of paper.

Kwanchai Rungfapaisarn

The Nation