Second salvo for Siam Global’s ASEAN expansion begins

After years of hiatus, Siam Global House, one of the biggest home improvement retail chains in Thailand, has restarted branching out activities around Southeast Asia. Over recent months, the company that is listed on the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) has quietly been building its presence in Indonesia and the Philippines, increasing its regional footprint to six of the ten markets under the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

Global House International, Siam Global's 50-50 joint venture with affiliate Siam Cement Group, amassed a 22 per cent stake in Indonesia’s PT Caturkada Depo Bangunan Tbk (CKDB), a building materials retailer that recently debuted on Jakarta’s bourse. The international unit of the Thai home supplies retailer initially purchased a 12.75 per cent stake in the Indonesian company on 25 November 2021, after which it raised its holdings to 22 per cent by buying an additional 9.25 per cent last February.

“CKDB is a leading Indonesian retailer of building material, decorative, hardware, construction, renovation, and decorative house/garden products under the brand Depo Bangunan,” Siam Global told the SET. “This investment will support [the company’s] strategic expansion of retail business in ASEAN.”

The Indonesian investment came in the heels of Siam Global’s establishment of two companies in the Philippines. In October last year, the company disclosed that it “approved the business expansion in [the] Philippines” and the creation of Global House Philippines Co., Ltd., which is 55 per cent owned by Siam Global, and Global House Philippines Estate Co. Ltd., in which the Thai company owns 40 per cent.

On its website, Siam Global classifies Global House Philippines as a retailer of building materials and home decoration products – though it remains to be seen how aggressive the Thai brand would be in expanding in the archipelagic market, since the Philippine unit has yet to open an outlet in the country of 110 million people.

To provide support to these new ventures as well as to existing ones, Siam Global announced that it has set up a wholly-owned company in China – Guangxi Global House International Trade Co., Ltd. – “to support the company’s business operations by procuring products” from the world’s manufacturing superpower.

The Southeast Asian push that began in 2021 is the second salvo for Siam Global. As early as 2015, the company already had ambitions of reaching neighbouring countries, starting with Laos, where Global House…