Vietnamese dollar billionaire: Buying 100 planes, acquiring American businesses

The bright stars

In the last days of the Year of the Rooster, the financial world received quite bright news. Financial news agencyBloombergconfirmed that Mr. Nguyen Dang Quang, Chairman of Masan Group Corporation (MSN), is the next USD billionaire in Vietnam after Mr. Pham Nhat Vuong and Ms. Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao. The continuous increase in MSN shares has helped Mr. Quang's assets double to 1.2 billion USD.

Within just one month, billionaire Pham Nhat Vuong's assets, according to Forbes' calculations, increased by 1.3 billion USD to 5.5 billion USD, ranking 366th in the world.

Mr. Vuong's assets are now nearly double those of US President Donald Trump, a real estate tycoon with about 3 billion USD and ranked 770th.

A series of famous billionaires such as Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha (Thai) - owner of Leicester City football club, Lewis - owner of Tottenham football club or business tycoon Richard Branson, Uber founder Travis Kalanick,... are all ranked below USD billionaire Pham Nhat Vuong. Mr. Vuong is also famous for surpassing tycoon Hoang Kieu (2.8 billion USD) to become the richest Vietnamese person in the world.

Billionaire Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao, owner of VietJet Air, is also a successful Vietnamese businesswoman. Forbes estimates that Ms. Phuong Thao has a net worth of about $3.3 billion and is ranked 728th as of January 31.

Ms. Thao is the first female billionaire in Vietnam, the second Vietnamese to be in the top 1,000 richest USD billionaires in the world and the only female billionaire in Southeast Asia, on par with Japan, which also had its first female billionaire last year. She is also the only Vietnamese woman in the top 100 most powerful women in the world and continues to outstrip Hillary Clinton.

Previously, Mr. Trinh Van Quyet, Chairman of FLC, and Mr. Trinh Dinh Long, Chairman of Hoa Phat, also had assets equivalent to billions of USD and were considered the 3rd-4th billionaires on the Vietnamese stock market.

International reach

It can be seen that, only about 1-2 decades ago, investors could hardly imagine that one day Vietnam would have a series of USD billionaires rising rapidly and reaching the same level as the region as it does now.

About 20 years ago, it was hard to imagine that domestic private enterprises could carry out urban area projects worth tens of millions of USD or a large-scale high-rise building. But now, a series of large-scale projects worth hundreds of millions to billions of USD are being carried out by Vietnamese owners across the country such as Vinhomes, Vinpearl, SunWorld, Muong Thanh, Sala, Van Phu, Hai Phat,... and international retail chains such as The Gioi Di Dong, CoopMart,...

Billion-dollar deals now not only belong to foreign corporations but also involve domestic giants. In the market, there are many Vietnamese businessmen behind shocking trillion-dollar deals such as Mr. Nguyen Van Tuan at Gelex,Ho Xuan Nangat Vicostone, heNguyen Duy Hung SSI, Pan Group,...

VCB is the main buyer of nearly 5 billion USD in the above deal, so that investors can convert to VND to pay for Sabeco shares. In the history of Vietnamese banking operations, there has never been such a large transaction handled by a domestic bank without having to mobilize funds on the international market. In the financial market, many domestic financial institutions have the capacity to compete with the region. In the capital sale deal of Saigon Beer (Sabeco) at the end of 2017, Vietcombank was the organization that neatly handled the transaction worth nearly 5 billion USD.

Also in 2017, investors witnessed the historic ambitious plans of Vietnamese businessmen. Mr. Pham Nhat Vuong was the one who continued the dream of building a Vietnamese automobile brand after 20 years of failure of the Vietnamese industry.

In less than half a year since launching the project, Mr. Vuong's Vinfast has announced two models of Sedan and SUV with intellectual property rights purchased from BMW, designed by the leading Italian designer Pininfarina. It is expected that the first two models will be introduced to the public in October 2018 at the Paris Motorshow 2018. At the same time, this group also recruited Mr. James B. DeLuca - former Vice President of the largest automobile group in the US, General Motor, who has 37 years of experience, having managed hundreds of thousands of employees at hundreds of factories in many countries.

Ms. Thao's Vietjet has only been in operation for 5 years, but thanks to attracting foreign capital and a bold business plan, it now accounts for more than 40% of the market share. This is considered an airline with a miraculous growth rate. Vietjet Air has just signed a world-shaking contract to buy 100 Boeing planes with a total value of 11.3 billion USD. A year ago, VJC also signed a contract to buy 100 planes with Airbus worth more than 9 billion USD.

1-2 decades ago, the phenomenon of Vietnamese businessmen investing abroad or acquiring foreign enterprises in the country was very rare, but now, such deals are quite common. Many Vietnamese tycoons spend hundreds of billions of dong to acquire enterprises and projects from foreign enterprises.

In recent years, instead of being acquired, many Vietnamese tycoons have done the opposite, spending hundreds of billions to own foreign businesses.

In recent days, a company owned by billionaire Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao has purchased 50% of the Bac An Khanh Urban Area project (Splendora) from Posco E&C Construction Company (Korea). Digital World Joint Stock Company - Digiworld (DGW) acquired a Japanese fast-moving consumer goods distribution company.

Hoang Anh Gia Lai - HAGL (HAG) of Mr. Doan Nguyen Duc (Bau Duc) brings money abroad to invest in high-end commercial areas in Yangon (Myanmar) or hundreds of thousands of hectares of rubber and sugarcane plantations in Laos,...

Most recently, Vietnam Dairy Products Joint Stock Company (Vinamilk) was approved to increase its investment capital by another 3 million USD in Driftwiood, bringing Vinamilk's total capital here to 10 million USD (about 230 billion VND) and increasing its ownership ratio from 70% to 100%. After the procedures are completed, Vinamilk will be the sole owner of Driftwiood.

In fact, it was not just last year that Vietnamese entrepreneurs started to bring Vietnamese brands, businesses and their own images to the world, but many years before that. However, 2017 was a year that witnessed the spectacular breakthrough of leading Vietnamese businesses in the international arena.

The successes of the past year are creating great spiritual encouragement for the Vietnamese business community. In the context of the 4th industrial revolution, with technology and management as the focus, Vietnamese businesses can break through quickly. The dream of reaching the world for Vietnamese entrepreneurs and businesses is no longer a distant dream.