Myanmar Golden Star Co. is one of the country’s leading corporate conglomerates. Incorporated in 1989, its objective is to expand its activities and transform from a small trading base to an internationally competitive venture. The group’s focus is on consumer products such as soft drinks, condensed milk and cigarettes.
Thein Tun was born on 26 March 1937 in Wakema, a small town in the Irrawaddy Division in the south of Myanmar. He was the second child in a family of three sons and three daughters. "In fact, I was the only child to receive a high school education", he said.
"My father was born and raised in Sinpyugyun Tanyaung in northern Burma, but seeking more opportunities, he moved to the south. The area in which we lived was famous for its rice production and my father became quite a successful rice trader. However, when I was four, my father – fearing for his young family – relocated us to his village in the north when the Japanese occupied our country in 1942."
Although he was only a young boy, Thein Tun remembers very clearly the journey to Sinpyugyun Tanyaung. His father bought a large rice barge capable of carrying 500-700 bags and the family travelled for almost a month along the Irrawaddy River to the village. He can remember the sights, sounds and smells of the trip as the boat moved northwards along the river past famous cities such as Pagan and through the dry zone.
"The journey took 21 days and it was filled with danger and excitement. I thought it was a great adventure", Thein Tun said.
His father’s hunch about the north’s safety paid off and Thein Tun has very happy memories of childhood there, in particular of riding horses throughout the countryside, visiting pagodas and monasteries.
What was going to be a short stay turned into ten years and it was not until 1952 when he was fifteen years old that Thein Tun left his father’s village to return to Rangoon and study at a small private high school known as AWA Private School.
When he completed school in 1954 he started to work as an assistant accountant at the Electricity Supply Board. His family was unable to afford a university education so, he remained with the Board for six years.
In 1961 he founded an import and export company called Aung Nyunt Swe Co. which, loosely translated, means "golden victory". Like a number of South East Asian entrepreneurs, Thein Tun has some faith in astrology and the name of his company was chosen by a leading astrologer of that time. This import and export business enabled him to travel to Japan, Hong Kong, India, Thailand and other destinations in Asia. He quickly acquired business contacts and was able to form strong partnerships.
By 1965, with the introduction of General Ne Win’s Burmese path to Socialism, the government nationalised all businesses and his company was closed down. The only possibility for entrepreneurs like him was to own and operate small family-owned businesses so he returned to his father’s village where he built a mill to produce edible oils from sesame seed and peanuts. "The socialist system at that time did not allow us to have companies but I acted as a sole trader selling ten barrels of edible oil a day", he said. After three or four years he was able to expand the business slightly into transporting products as well.
"In 1976, I learnt I could re-enter the import and export business by acting as an individual agent for foreign companies. Given all the contacts I had developed in the early ‘60s, I thought I had a great opportunity to represent foreign companies in Myanmar. I returned to Yangon from 1976 to 1989 and worked hard to develop a successful agency business."
He believes these years were extremely important as he learnt a tremendous amount from his international principals and developed an extensive network which enabled him to move quickly to establish joint ventures with foreign partners when the government allowed a market economy to re-emerge in 1988.
"In 1989 out of a population of 46 million I believe there were probably only 200 individuals operating agency businesses like me." He was, in fact, surprised when the government moved from a socialist to a market economy. "I didn’t think the system would change. I developed joint ventures with foreign investors easily because I had a lot more connections with foreign firms compared to most people", Thein Tun explained.
It was around this time that fate also played a hand, enabling him to expand even more quickly. In 1987 he fell ill and the government gave him permission to go to England for medical treatment. While he was there waiting for the doctor’s appointment, "paying £370 rent per week" as he tells me, he watched television every day and studied the companies that survived the stock market crash of Black Friday in October 1987. "I noticed it was mainly consumer products which survived the crisis and I told my sons who had joined me that, if Myanmar ever moved to a market economy, we should concentrate on developing the consumer products business."
If one looks at the businesses in which Thein Tun is involved today it is clear he has implemented his 1997 vision. Major products produced by the group include condensed milk, tetropack, detergent powder and mineral water from his reconfigured PepsiCola plant. It is, in fact, his joint venture with PepsiCola which brought him to international recognition, particularly in the United States. The venture proved enormously successful but then politics intervened leading to PepsiCola’s withdrawing from the Myanmar market.
Thein Tun purchased the Pepsi shareholding and now produces mineral water and other soft drinks from the factory. Many business-men would have been emotionally destroyed by the break-up of this joint venture, particularly as it was going so well and Coca Cola had not entered the market.
However, Thein Tun is philosophical and said, "It was the right business decision for both Pepsi and ourselves to establish this venture and, of course, I am sad that political pressure in the United States forced Pepsi to withdraw. However, that is life and there was nothing either of us could really have done to change the outcome. With the decision made, what was most important for me was to focus on the future, not the past".
The group’s trading activities are also profitable and so is the wholly owned wood products company, Pioneer Venture Limited. It produces 10-15 tonnes of semi-finished wood products a day. Another wood-based subsidiary, Myanmar Development International Company Limited, which is 46 per cent owned by a Singapore-based company, specialises in processing rubberwood and other kinds of wood.
Trading activities include the distribution of such luxury goods as Chivas Regal, consumer items from Proctor and Gamble and motor vehicles. At the group’s condensed milk plant, which is 49 per cent owned by the government, renovation work is underway to upgrade the production line with Dutch made machinery to increase capacity. Thein Tun is also Chairman of a company dealing in stationery and office supplies, a Director of Myanmar Citizen Bank and Myanmar Forest Products Corporation and the Chairman of the Myanmar Chamber of Commerce.
Thein Tun has three sons and two daughters but, unlike many of the other subjects in this book, he has placed no obligations on his children to enter the family businesses. His eldest son has sadly passed away and, of his other children, only his third son currently works full-time for his business. "My second son is employed by the Sofitel Hotel Group in Yangon where I am a small shareholder. My younger daughter, Kyi Kyi Khaing, is still at school and my elder daughter works for Myanmar Goldstar", he said.
As indicated earlier, Thein Tun to some extent believes in and consults astrologers. "I am sure there are some people who can tell the future", he said. "However, I do not consult astrologers so much for business decisions as for issues of health and family."
Not surprisingly, for someone with his beliefs, he thinks luck plays a 50 per cent role in one’s success or failure. The other ingredients are, in his opinion, vision, opportunity, timing, hard work, team work and decision-making.
"Even if you knew everything there was to know about a particular business you must have timing on your side. To succeed as an entrepreneur one has to learn how to earn money, then make money and finally to use the skills and experience of highly qualified people to make money with and for you", he said.
In a country which is 90 per cent Buddhist, it is not surprising to find that Thein Tun is a strict Buddhist and meditates half an hour to an hour each day. "Over the last nine years I have become even stricter in my Buddhist regime and now eat no pork or beef and only allow myself a small glass of wine from time to time."
While Thein Tun is an entrepreneur to the core, he has already achieved a level of financial independence so in the remainder of his business career he wants to concentrate on more philanthropic endeavours and to leave the running of his businesses to professionals. "Three years ago I established the Tun Foundation Bank, the charter of which is that 100 per cent of its profits will go to charitable objectives – religious, educational, health and social."
As I left Thein Tun, the impression which stayed with me was of someone who was, as we say in the west, "comfortable in his skin" and for whom business is an activity to be enjoyed. I think the most telling point he made was that you cannot beat "the market" and that timing is of critical importance to success. The demise of his joint venture with PepsiCola is testimony to both these points.
Wrote in 1999 Subtitle The Life Stories of Leading South East Asian Business People @ http://www.afgventuregroup.com
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