Heinecke made what was perhaps his biggest bet on Thailand in 1991 when he renounced his US citizenship to become a Thai. His US-born wife and childhood sweetheart, Kathleen, did the same. They now need visas to return to the land of their birth. At first, Heinecke found doing business in his adopted country deceptively easy. He built hotels and snapped up franchises to sell Western fast food, including the Pizza Hut, Swensen’s and Dairy Queen licences, and he expanded the chains rapidly. But in 1997 the baht collapsed, unleashing the Asian financial crisis. As the value of the currency plunged to 55 baht to the US dollar from 25 baht, hundreds of entrepreneurs that had borrowed in US dollars found their business empires bankrupted. Heinecke says his business survived only because he sold almost every available asset he owned abroad that he could get hard currency for, including a Jaguar E-type and a Chevrolet Corvette, and spending the proceeds on propping up his business. Within two years, Minor was profitable again and Heinecke was in a strong enough position to mount two of his most audacious business coups against US rivals.