Thailand’s second richest man is reportedly in ‘informal talks’ over a bid to buy back the Tesco business in Thailand.

Dhanin Chearavanont, the billionaire owner of the Charoen Pokphand Group (CP) was Tesco’s original joint venture partner in the nation, but sold his stake during the Asian financial crisis.

Now Tesco is facing a crisis of its own, its share value has plummeted 42 per cent amidst investigations of cooked books and a rapidly shrinking market share in its domestic market. One plan it has flagged is to sell its Asian assets to free capital to revive its core home business.

According to Thai media, an unidentified source has confirmed Dhanin has already informally met with local banks to discuss funding a bid for the business, said to be worth as much as US$10 billion.

Tesco Lotus has 1737 shops in Thailand, about three quarters of the Tesco Asia business.

Sources from both Tesco and CP declined to comment when approached by Thai news media for confirmation.

Dhanin has already bought back another retail investment he shed during the Asian crisis – Siam Makro.

To date he is the only prospective buyer publicly named as interested in the assets – and Tesco has yet to decide whether to see the assets, although having used 80 per cent of its first half profit on interest charges it has little choice but to offload something in its portfolio. A public float of the Asian operations, the balance of which are in Korea, India and Malaysia, is also on the table.