Mr. Duc talks about 3 benefactors, including a famous billionaire

“Hoang Anh Gia Lai is now very different from the past”, “The agricultural picture is clearer, the indicators are also much better”… are the opinions of a number of analysts and individual investors during a recent visit to Hoang Anh Gia Lai farm (HAGL, stock code: HAG). Representatives of nearly 50 financial institutions, investment funds, Vietnamese securities companies and individual investors participated in this trip.

Mr. P. - a long-time individual investor (who bought HAG shares since 2017) - assessed that agriculture is one of the industries with many bright spots in recent times and has attracted large investment funds. However, the majority of stock investors in Vietnam still tend to "live for the moment" so they have not properly assessed the potential of the industry and its stocks.

This investor believes that the agricultural approach of Mr. Tran Ba Duong - Chairman of Thaco Board of Directors - and Mr. Doan Nguyen Duc (Bau Duc) is different. Thaco has enough resources to invest in high technology, while HAGL, due to its large scale, does not have many conditions at this stage. However, Mr. P. still praised HAGL's very good indicators, in the future if there are enough resources for technology, it will be very potential.

An expert from a securities company said that Mr. Duc's agricultural model is relatively complete and has potential, but in the future, it is necessary to invest in anti-dust systems on roads as well as in factories.

Bầu Đức nói về 3 ân nhân, trong đó có một tỷ phú nổi tiếng - 1 — 50 financial institutions, investment funds, Vietnamese securities companies and individual investors visited HAGL's farm (Photo: Organizing Committee).

"In farming, everything is risky"

To get to where he is today, Mr. Duc, during his first trip, talked about 3 benefactors of HAGL. The first is Mr. Tran Ba Duong, who signed the HAGL restructuring strategy in 2018 and then took over HAGL Agrico. According to Mr. Duc, thanks to the presence of the above enterprise, his company has reduced most of its debt burden so that it can start over.

Second, LPBank Securities Joint Stock Company with the "handshake" to buy newly issued shares in 2022. This resource helps HAGL reduce thousands of billions of dong in debt, as well as create conditions for reinvestment.

Third is OCB and Huong Viet Investment Company (shared OCB ecosystem). Specifically, HAGL has just issued 210 million shares to convert existing debt, the total debt swap is 2,520 billion VND. In the list of participants, Huong Viet Investment is the unit holding the largest debt, nearly 721 billion VND.

When asked about risks, Mr. Duc frankly said that farming is risky, "everything". However, with HAGL's perseverance and current picture, insiders have faith in the upcoming future.

The hard lesson he learned from his failure was not to abuse borrowed capital. The successful stock swap for the Huong Viet Investment group helped the company reduce its bank debt by more than VND2,000 billion, bringing the bank debt balance to about VND5,000 billion (a reduction of VND23,000 billion after 10 years, since 2016).

HAGL is the property of Mr. Duc - a businessman from Gia Lai. After declaring a loss of liquidity since 2016, this company has been making efforts to come back, focusing on circular agriculture with 4 main crops (banana, durian, mulberry, coffee) and 2 animals (pigs, silkworms).

Up to now, the company has 7,000 hectares of bananas and 2,000 hectares of durian. Mr. Duc shared that he is planting 1,000 hectares of new durian, 3,500 hectares of coffee and 1,000 hectares of mulberry with plans to expand to 2,000 hectares.

The two new segments are mulberry and coffee. The company exported its first batch of raw silk to India around July and is also completing two factories with 40 silk weaving lines, including the factory in Ham Rong and one in Gia Lai.

Bau Duc revealed that HAGL learned about this mulberry sector thanks to Mr. Ly Xuan Hai - former General Director of Asia Commercial Bank (ACB), currently Chairman of Bao Loc Silk - consulting, from which the idea came up and the experiment was conducted. Regarding output, with mulberry, similar to bananas, there is already a commodity floor in the world, so there will be no worry about whether there are buyers or not. According to the international market, the purchase price of raw silk is around 65 USD/kg (about 1.6 million VND).

As for coffee, Mr. Duc admitted that he "knew about it a bit late", but still set an ambitious plan to plant 10,000 hectares of coffee, and has so far planted about 3,500 hectares.

Regarding the pig sector, the company is maintaining 9 pig farms in Vietnam, with a capacity of 20,000 sows and 500,000 pigs. Currently, the pig market is unfavorable, so the company has no plans to invest in further expansion.

Bầu Đức nói về 3 ân nhân, trong đó có một tỷ phú nổi tiếng - 2 — HAGL's CCTV room, where all corners of the farm can be observed through high-resolution TV screens (Photo: BTC).

"Favorite child" Hung Thang Loi changes name, listed on stock exchange from the second quarter of 2026

Notably, HAGL has approved a plan to list two subsidiaries, Hung Thang Loi Gia Lai and Gia Suc Lo Pang, on the stock exchange in 2026 and 2027. Hung Thang Loi will change its name (Hoang Anh Gia Lai International Investment Joint Stock Company), expected to be listed in the second quarter of 2026.

According to research, Hung Thang Loi Gia Lai was established on October 12, 2016, its main business line is crop cultivation services, with charter capital at 1,285 billion VND.

In mid-October, HAGL approved the conversion of debt into equity at Hung Thang Loi, converting 300 billion VND of debt into equity at the above company, thereby increasing the charter capital of this subsidiary to 1,585 billion VND. Thus, the value of the capital contribution of Mr. Duc's company here is more than 1,569 billion VND, equivalent to a 99% ownership ratio.

According to Mr. Duc, Hung Thang Loi is a "savings" that even he himself is surprised by its potential. Statistics from 2023-2024 show that this company has a double-digit revenue and profit growth rate, estimated at 1,600 billion VND in profit this year and exceeding 2,000 billion VND in 2027.

With the above ecosystem, Mr. Duc estimated that HAGL's profit by November was at 1,800 billion VND, and is expected to reach 2,800 billion VND for the whole year, 300 billion VND higher than the plan.

Source: https://dantri.com.vn/kinh-doanh/bau-duc-noi-ve-3-an-nhan-trong-do-co-mot-ty-phu-noi-tieng-20251117153809873.htm