Vingroup draws $7.6 bln foreign capital

The first ever foreign investment was by American private-equity firm Warburg Pincus in Vincom Retail, which picked up 20 percent stake for $200 million in 2013, according to a report Vingroup recently released. By June 2015 it had invested another $100 million. 

Warburg Pincus sold around three-fourths of its holdings during Vincom Retail’s initial public offering in November 2017, netting $740 million, or more than double its investment. It retains a 3.99 percent stake in the retailer. 

Between 2013 and mid-2016 Vingroup raised another $650 million through three separate issuances of international bonds and syndicated loans.

Last year saw $4.4 billion invested mainly in Vinhomes, Vingroup’s real estate development arm, and subsidiary VinFast, Vietnam’s first indigenous auto company.

In May last year Singaporean sovereign fund GIC paid $853 million to become a strategic shareholder of Vinhomes during its IPO, which went on to raise a total of $1.35 billion, Vietnam’s biggest ever issue to date. 

The most recent transactions saw South Korean conglomerate SK Group acquire a 6.15 percent stake in Vingroup for around $1 billion in May, and a GIC-led consortium investing $500 million for a minority stake in VCM Services and Trading Development JSC, a Vingroup subsidiary engaged primarily in consumer retail in September.

Vingroup (VIC), which began as a real estate and retail company, has grown to become Vietnam’s largest listed company with a market cap of VND394.82 trillion ($17.02 billion) as of Monday. 

In addition to launching its first cars this year, Vingroup has also entered the aviation and smartphone markets.