Central Retail floated Thailand's biggest IPO six weeks before the world locked down

On February 6, 2020, with Wuhan's death toll already past 500, Thailand's largest retailer priced its IPO at 42 baht, near the top of a 40-43 baht band. The deal raised 78.1 billion baht (about $2.5 billion) after full exercise of the overallotment option — the country's largest IPO ever — valuing Central Retail at 260 billion baht with cornerstones including Singapore's GIC and Capital Research, at a trailing P/E of 30.

Six weeks later the world locked down. Thai authorities closed fashion retail from March 22, 2020 (Italy had shut CRC's Rinascente from March 12), and first-quarter net profit collapsed 63% year-on-year to THB 890 million. But total revenue still edged up 1% to THB 54.285 billion, because the portfolio's defensive half held: food grew 4% across Thailand and Vietnam, and hardlines — construction and home-renovation goods — grew 32%.

Instead of freezing, the company kept building. It opened its 34th GO! store in Vietnam during the pandemic, and in September 2023 launched Go Wholesale, a B2B food arm aimed at hotels, restaurants and small retailers, leaning on Central Group's synergy of 110 department stores, 6,750 restaurants, 93 hotels and a 28-million-member loyalty base.

In February 2023 CRC unveiled its largest-ever Vietnam investment: a five-year, THB 50 billion plan for 2023-27, on top of more than THB 10 billion deployed there over the previous decade. The retailer that had listed into panic ended up using the panic-era proceeds to out-expand its market.

Raised THB 78.1B (~$2.5B), Thailand's largest IPO ever; food +4% and hardline +32% through Q1 2020; THB 50B Vietnam expansion unveiled in 2023.

The food-heavy mix was the hedge: grocery demand barely moved, so revenue grew 1% even while fashion floors sat shuttered.

Listing near the top of the range despite the virus panic locked in THB 78.1B before valuations cracked — capital it did not have to raise again.

Cornerstones such as GIC and Capital Research underwrote confidence for retail investors at the worst possible moment.

Rather than pause, it kept opening Vietnamese stores, converting peak-priced IPO cash into permanent physical footprint.

A crisis IPO priced into fear hands the issuer cash and credibility at the moment rivals retrench — then the balance sheet, not the market, does the expanding.

CRC came through its first public years bigger rather than merely unscathed. Q1 2020's 63% profit slump proved to be the trough; food and home-renovation categories carried revenue flat through the lockdown, Vietnam grew from 34 GO! stores into the centrepiece of a THB 50 billion 2023-27 plan, and the Go Wholesale launch in September 2023 opened a second growth engine aimed at business customers. The Feb 2020 pricing — near the top of the band, in the last quiet fortnight — became the transaction the whole arc rested on.