Thai builder seeks debt relief after two deadly crane accidents

[BANGKOK] A Thai construction company under investigation over its role in two fatal crane crashes that killed 34 people earlier this week is seeking investor consent to restructure about US$446 million of debt.

Italian-Thai Development will hold an online meeting with bondholders at 2 pm in Bangkok on Friday (Jan 16) to request an extension of the maturity of five series of notes by three years as part of a broader restructuring effort.

The efforts come a day after the Thai government ordered the nation’s largest construction company by revenue to suspend work at more than a dozen infrastructure projects. Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul said on Thursday that his government would terminate Italian-Thai’s contracts of projects where the crane accidents occurred.

However, Italian-Thai said that the contracts to build a section of the China-backed high-speed rail network in northeastern Thailand, where a crane crash killed at least 32 people and injured dozens, and an elevated expressway connecting the capital Bangkok to coastal Samut Sakhon province, remain valid.

The crane crash on the expressway on Thursday killed two people, sparking a public outcry and calls from political parties for action against the company.

Italian-Thai, founded in 1958 by Chaijudh Karnasuta, a Thai national, and Italian Giorgio Berlingieri, is grappling with a liquidity crunch that has forced it to offload its overseas investments, including a cement business in India and a mining unit in Thailand.

The contractor has racked up losses of about 13 billion baht (S$534 million) from 2020 to 2024 as it took on engineering projects including in India, Taiwan and Myanmar, where imposition of military rule led to delays and write-downs.

Premchai Karnasuta, Italian-Thai’s president, was among more than 20 individuals and related parties to be indicted by the Thai prosecutors for their links to the collapse of a partly finished government building in Bangkok that killed 89 workers following an earthquake in March.

Italian-Thai posted net income of 7.4 billion baht in the first nine months of 2025, boosted by gains from the sale of an overseas unit, even as revenue from construction continued to slump.

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Two dead in Thailand after another crane collapses, crushing cars

The company’s shares tumbled 10 per cent in Bangkok, extending declines this year to 27 per cent. A sustained sell-off in Italian-Thai’s shares has seen its market value shrink to about one billion baht from 12 billion baht in 2021. BLOOMBERG