General Newsletter June 2021

Greetings from the New Nordic Group in Thailand.

As has been reported extensively in the international press, the third wave of COVID-19 has hit Thailand severely. Over 2,500 new infections were recorded each day in May. This is having a significant adverse impact on Thailand’s economy, from which all reports indicate will be a long and slow recovery. For example, the Tourism Authority of Thailand recently reported that they forecast tourism will not rebound until 2026. This sector provided 40,000,000 tourists annually and contributed 20% to the Thai economy and is now decimated with over 7 million workers without jobs.

Nationwide, Thailand hotel occupancy for the full year of 2020 ended at 23.5 per cent, compared to 72 per cent in 2019, using Total Room Inventory (TRI) Occupancy, where the metric includes hotels that are temporarily closed. According to the Thai Hotel Association, only 30 per cent of hotels in major destinations such as Phuket, Koh Samui, Phang Nga, Pattaya and Chiang Mai, are still in operation

New Nordic invested in a diverse portfolio of “up and coming” holiday destinations across the country, ranging from Phuket to Koh Samui to Chumphon. All of these destinations have been equally devastated not only by lack of foreign tourist arrivals and a faltering economy but also by disease control measures which have stifled domestic tourism as well. Clearly, for the immediate future, mass tourism cannot be relied upon to contribute to property rental returns or drive new projects, and this will need to be factored into our business reorganization plans.

Also, as we stated last month, most buildings are closed due to this lack of tourists, but we continue to protect and maintain all our projects and assets around the clock. This is essential while we work on solutions that will return to our customers the best possible outcome.

To supplement the information we have provided in this and previous newsletters, we would like to inform you that we will be holding a Live Webinar on June 23 at 3 PM (GMT +7). While this webinar will be focused on the restructuring petition filed by New Nordic Development, we would like to invite all New Nordic clients in order to be as transparent as possible. We will be sending out a special invitation in the coming days with access information for the webinar.

We would like to remind those clients who hold freehold title or registered leases on completed projects that we have established a quick and easy way to take possession of those units for private use. Simply e-mail helpdesk@newnordicgroup.com for more information.

We thank you for your continued patience as our teams progress toward both a plan for the completion of all projects as well as a sustainable operational roadmap for the future. Enclosed, we have provided some current pictures of various projects taken during a recent inspection.

As always, should you have questions or comments, you’re welcome to reach out to us at helpdesk@newnordicgroup.com.

Best regards,
New Nordic Thailand