Htoo Group of Companies

The HGC was established as Htoo Trading Company in 1990 [1]. The name Htoo came from Htoo Supply Company established in 1958, by U Zaw Nyunt and Daw Htoo, the parents of Thida Zaw, Tay Za's wife. After the coup d'état by Ne Win's Burma Socialist Programme Party in 1962, Htoo Supply Company was nationalized. However, its rice mills and saw mills continued to operate as a family business.

Htoo Trading Company was established in 1990, by Tay Za, Thida Zaw, Myo Thant and Yu Zaw, soon after the 1988 coup d'état led by General Saw Maung. Myo Thant sold and handover the Htoo Trading Company to Tay Za and, the company was engaged in logging and timber exports in addition to its core rice milling and saw milling business. The company gradually gained access to large areas of virgin forest near the Burma-Thailand border. Htoo Trading Company was later expanded into the Htoo Group of Companies (HGC) as a result of diversification into other business sectors, reinvestment and expansion.

Subsidiaries of HTOO Group of Companies include

Aureum Palace Hotels & Resorts

Air Bagan Holdings Company Ltd.

APEX Petroleum Co., Ltd.

Sanctions

On October 18, 2007, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the United States Department of the Treasury imposed financial sanctions against Tay Za, his wife Thidar Zaw, his eldest son Pyae Phyo Tay Za, and five of the companies controlled by Tay Za, including Htoo Trading Company and Air Bagan. The sanctions were instituted in response to protests against the junta on the streets of many cities in Burma in September 2007.

On 5 February 2008, those sanctions were expanded to include some of Tay Za's partners, including Aung Thet Mann, Thiha and U Kyaw Thein, as well as HGC itself. Also named in the new sanctions order were Khin Lay Thet, wife of General Thura Shwe Mann, Myint Myint Ko, wife of Construction Minister Mon Saw Tun, Tin Lin Myint, wife of Lieutenant General Ye Myint, the head of Military Affairs Security, and Myint Myint Soe, wife of Minister of Foreign Affairs Nyan Win.

The sanctions were expanded pursuant to Executive Order 13448, which authorizes the United States Secretary of the Treasury to designate senior regime officials, human rights violators in Burma, persons engaged in public corruption in Burma, financial and material supporters of the Government of Burma, and spouses and dependent children of previously designated individuals. The designation freezes any assets the designees may have subject to U.S. jurisdiction, and prohibits all financial and commercial transactions by any U.S. person with the designated companies and individuals.

The business being related to the government of Myanmar, since 2008, it is also subject to European Union sanctions which include seizing corporate and personal assets.

On 7 October 2016, the United States Department of the Treasury implemented termination of the Burma Sanctions Program in accordance with the Executive Order issued on the same date by the U.S. President Barack Obama, which effectively removed Tay Za, along with other Business Tycoons from OFAC's Specially Designated Nationals list, effectively removing HTOO Group of Companies and its subsidiaries off the previously imposed sanctions.

On 2 September 2021, the group and its chairman Tay Za were sanctioned by the UK for providing financial support and arms to Myanmar's military.