Thai billionaire's firm to receive $54M dividend from Vietnam brewer Sabeco

By Tat Dat June 17, 2024 | 08:38 pm PT

Bottles of Sabeco's Saigon beer are seen at a restaurant bar in Hanoi, Vietnam. Photo by Reuters

A subsidiary of Thai Beverage, which is controlled by Thailand’s second richest man Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi, will receive a dividend of VND1.37 trillion ($54 million) from Vietnamese brewer Sabeco.

The HCMC company, which makes the popular Saigon Beer, will pay its second dividend for 2023 in cash at the rate of VND2,000 per share next month.

It will pay a total of VND2.56 trillion to shareholders.

Vietnam Beverage, the subsidiary of Thai Beverage, owns a 53.6% stake in Sabeco.

It bought the stake in 2017 for VND110 trillion and has since received VND10.65 trillion in dividends.

In recent years Sabeco has been paying cash dividends regularly at a rate of VND3,000 per share and even VND5,000 at times.

Its chairman, Koh Poh Tiong, had said in 2022 that Sabeco sought to maximize the company’s value to shareholders with cash dividends.

The Thai Beverage leadership has said Sabeco is the company’s "crown jewel" in Southeast Asia.

Vietnam is the biggest Southeast Asian beer market with a value of $26 billion, and was the third biggest in Asia in 2021 behind only China and Japan.

Sabeco’s profits have however been declining after reaching a peak in the second quarter of 2022.

Last year it plunged 23% to VND4.25 trillion, its lowest since 2016 if Covid-19 figures were excluded.

But it targets an increase of 8% this year to VND4.58 trillion.