Thai Billionaire Chaleo Yoovidhya, the founder of energy drink Red Bull and the third richest man in Thailand, died Saturday at the age of 89, a company spokeswoman said.
Chaleo was estimated to have a fortune of $5 billion, according to business magazine Forbes, having fallen from the top spot on its annual list which he held in 2009.
According to local reports he was born into a poor Sino-Thai family in the northern province of Phichit who made their living from duck farming and fruit trading.
Chaleo moved to Bangkok to help his brother in his drug store before becoming a salesman and later set up his own pharmaceutical factory in the old quarter of Bangkok.
His TC Pharmaceuticals produced a “tonic drink” called Krating Daeng (“Red Bull”) which was popular with factory shift workers and truck drivers and provided the inspiration for the international beverage.
In 1984 Chaleo founded Red Bull with Austrian marketing whiz Dietrich Mateschitz, who had become aware of “tonic drinks” while travelling in Asia, and they started selling the drink in Austria in 1987.
According to the company website, Mateschitz got the idea for the business while sitting at the bar in the Mandarin Hotel in Hong Kong in 1982.
The pair each owned 49 percent of the company, with Chaleo’s son Chalerm holding the remaining two percent. The drink, which was produced in Chaleo’s factory, is now sold in more than 70 countries worldwide.
The Bangkok Post narrated Chaleo’s success story this way:
“Chaleo was the founder of TC Pharmaceuticals and the originator of the Krating Daeng energy drink. Mr Chaleo knew he had a success story on his hands when his new concoction, introduced to the market in 1976, took only a year to overtake all but one of its competitors and reach second spot behind Osotspa’s Lipovitan-D.
“Just one year after that, Krating Daeng had snatched the largest share of the competitive tonic segment.
“The most important factor behind the drink’s meteoric rise was Chaleo’s business savvy in positioning his product to appeal to labourers and blue-collar workers. His sales pitch was simple. He offered a low-cost product, advertised it heavily and offered popular giveaways among the working classes.
“Not content with countrywide success, Chaleo moved aggressively into the international energy drink market. In 1984, he co-invested with Austrian businessman Dietrich Mateschitz to set up Red Bull GmbH based in Austria to produce and market the tonic under the iconic Red Bull brand in more than 70 countries worldwide”
Chaleo married twice and had 11 children, five from his first wife and six from his second.
Apart from its energy drink business, Red Bull also owns two football teams, Red Bull Salzburg in Austria and the New York Red Bulls in the United States, and a Formula One stable of the same name.
Chaleo’s family were due to start a week-long traditional Buddhist rites at a monastery west of Bangkok, a temple worker said.
According to Bangkok Post, In his Thai-language autobiography, Chaleo wrote that Red Bull gave him an income of 11 million baht per day, about $400,000.
The proper translation of “Krating Daeng” is “red gaur,” a familiar phrase in Thailand that refers to the nearly extinct, cattle-like animals found mostly in the region of the Thai-Cambodia border. When the drink went international, however, “krating” was translated as “bull”. Click to signup for FREE news updates, latest information and hottest gists everyday
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