Thein Tun (businessman) explained

Thein Tun
Birth Date:26 March 1937
Birth Place:Wakema Township, Irrawaddy Division, British Burma
Death Place:Bangkok, Thailand
Known For:Founder of Myanmar Golden Star
Children:3

Thein Tun (Burmese: သိန်းထွန်း; 26 March 1937[1] – 18 April 2022)[1] was a Burmese businessman and founder of Myanmar Golden Star.[2] He was best known for introducing Pepsi into the Burmese market through Myanmar Golden Star in 1991.[2] He benefited from close connections with Tun Kyi, a former Burmese general.

Early life

Thein Tun was born in Wakema Township, Irrawaddy Division (now Ayeyarwady Region).[3]

Career

In 1990, Thein Tun introduced Pepsi to the Burmese market, after PepsiCo entered into a 10-year joint venture with Thein Tun's Myanmar Golden Star (MGS). In 1997, amid new US sanctions on the Burmese military junta, PepsiCo exited the Burmese market. In 2014, he sold 70% of MGS' shares to Korean-owned Lotte Chilsung.

Thein Tun also founded Tun Foundation Bank. In 2014, he acquired majority stake in Myanmar Consolidated Media, which owns Myanmar Times.[4] The newspaper suspended operations in February 2021, following the 2021 Myanmar coup d'état, after employees resigned en masse.

Death

He died in Bangkok, Thailand on 18 April 2022.

Personal life

Thein Tun was married to Nelly Than. He had 2 sons and one daughter. His son, Thant Zin Tun, is president of Mandalay Novotel Hotel and LP Holding Group, while another son, Oo Tun, is managing director of MGS Beverages. His only daughter, Mi Mi Tun, is an executive director at MGS Beverages. Thein Tun's son-in-law, Aung Moe Kyaw, owns International Beverages Trading.[5]

Notes and References

  1. Web site: မြန်မာနိုင်ငံစီးပွားရေးကဏ္ဍ ဖွံ့ဖြိုးရေးနှင့် လူမှုအကျိုးဆောင်ပုဂ္ဂိုလ်ကြီး ဦးသိန်းထွန်း Ministry Of Information . www.moi.gov.mm . 22 April 2022 . en.
  2. News: Burmese Tycoons Part II. July 2000. The Irrawaddy. 11 July 2015.
  3. Web site: Oo . Dominic . 2022-05-18 . 'Godfather' of Myanmar's crony capitalists dies . 2023-09-26 . Asia Times . en-US.
  4. News: Tycoon U Thein Tun buys majority share The Myanmar Times. 3 March 2014. Mizzima. 11 July 2015.
  5. Web site: Aung Min . Toshihiro Kudo . 2014 . Business Conglomerates in the Context of Myanmar's Economic Reform . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20150924032745/http://www.ide.go.jp/English/Publish/Download/Brc/pdf/13_07.pdf . 24 September 2015 . 11 July 2015 . Myanmar's Integration with Global Economy: Outlook and Opportunities . Bangkok Research Report.