By 1993 when he died, Chuan led a powerful diversified business group. Its growth had been financed largely by retained earnings with most of the group companies having little or no financial liabilities . Chuan's conservative approach to business and banking reflected his command of financial detail across all the businesses and meant that the Ratanarak Group had a strong financial foundation when in 1997 Thailand was hit by the Asian financial crisis. The robust financial position of the Ratanarak Group companies at the time Chuan died in 1993 meant that the family group, now under the control of Chuan's son and heir Krit, was one of very few to prosper despite the crisis. The group emerged from the crisis with the Ratanaraks retaining their position in the top five business families in Thailand, and one of three of Thailand's most powerful business families along with the Sophonpanich and Lamsam families. While other banks closed or were nationalized, the Ratanarak family successfully completed a recapitalization of Krungsri Bank without losing control and the bank continued to improve its performance in the post-crisis aftermath. In 1996 before the crisis the bank had a market value of US $4 billion in 2013 prices, and this had risen to US $7 billion in 2014. The family shareholding in the bank was reduced in 2007 from 35% to 25% to comply with a reduction in the maximum permitted holding under new banking regulations which came into force in 2008. The reduction in the family's holding was taken up by GE Capital whom the family brought into the management of the bank in 2007 to install best practice. In 2013 GE Capital held just under 25% of the bank's equity and were part-way through a process to sell their remaining holding following losses incurred in the 2008 banking crisis and a change in strategy by GE to reduce their exposure to financial services. In 2013 the Ratanarak family controlled 25% of the bank's equity and was the bank's largest shareholder. The family also successfully recapitalized Siam City Cement, in the process selling part of the family's equity to Holderbank (later to become Holcim) in 1998. Contemporary newspaper reports wrongly suggested that the sale of equity to Holderbank was used by the family to raise the funds required to recapitalize Bank of Ayudhya. However, as part of the terms of the sale, the full proceeds received by the family from Holderbank – as well as additional funds from the Ratanarak Group - were reinvested in Siam City Cement via a rights issue to recapitalize the business and the capital injected by the family into the bank came instead from contingency reserves  In 2013 the Ratanarak family controlled 47% of the equity in Siam City Cement which had a market value of US $3.2 billion and no significant debt with Holcim holding 27.5% of the shares.