FPT Digital Retail Joint Stock Company ( FPT Retail - stock code: FRT) has just announced its financial report for the second quarter of 2025. Notably, during the period, the enterprise reduced its ownership capital in the Long Chau pharmacy chain by 2.14%. Specifically, in the first quarter of the year, FPT Retail owned 80.73% of the capital in Long Chau, but by the second quarter, the holding ratio was 78.59% of the capital.
In another development, FPT Retail also recorded revenue from issuing shares and receiving capital contributions from owners of more than VND887 billion. This revenue is likely to come from FPT Retail's revenue from selling shares of the FPT Long Chau pharmacy chain to strategic partner Creador.
With the amount of money FPT Retail earned over 887 billion VND, this strategic partner valued the Long Chau pharmacy chain at about 32,400 billion VND (equivalent to 1.2 billion USD). Currently, FPT Retail has not given its opinion on this issue.
The announcement of Creador as a strategic partner was shared by Mr. Hoang Trung Kien - General Director of FPT Retail - at the 2025 annual general meeting of shareholders of this enterprise. Mr. Kien said that the two sides have signed a cooperation agreement. According to the roadmap, Creador aims to increase its ownership in Long Chau to 13% of shares, the implementation time is expected to take about a year.
The participation of this partner is expected by the management to bring a “new breeze” to the business after a period of very strong growth. “Creador has a lot of experience investing in the health and pharmaceutical sectors and has many relationships with pharmaceutical and health companies and chains in many countries. We see that Creador will support the company to have a new perspective in organizing business activities and introducing relationships,” added General Nguyen Bach Diep.
What unit is Creador?
Creador is a private equity fund founded in 2011 and headquartered in Malaysia. This fund focuses on long-term investments in high-growth businesses in South Asia and Southeast Asia with assets under management of more than 3 billion USD.
Creador invests in a variety of industries such as financial services, consumer durables, retail, food service, pharmaceuticals, healthcare, media and business services.
Since its inception, the firm has raised nearly a trillion dollars for three private equity funds, Creador I, Creador II and Creador III.
Since 2018, Credor founder and CEO Brahmal Vasudevan announced his intention to invest $100 million in Vietnam. He said: “We are very impressed with the strong, sustainable growth and entrepreneurial spirit of the Vietnamese people. We see similarities with China and India and see Vietnam as the next BRIC country.”
Creador's current portfolio.
The “opening” deal in Vietnam was when Alstonia Costata Sdn. Bhd, a member of Creador Investment Group, invested VND994 billion (equivalent to USD43.8 million) in Vietnam’s largest mobile phone retailer, Mobile World Joint Stock Company (stock code: MWG). At that time, this was the fund’s 29th investment since its establishment in 2011.
Updated to December 2024, Creador Fund VI has completed raising over $930 million, exceeding its previously set target of $750 million. And the partnership with Long Chau is an important step for Creador, marking the fund's 59th investment since its inception.
On Creador's website, Long Chau has appeared in the fund's portfolio.
Long Chau - the "bet" FPT Retail has been tirelessly pursuing for nearly a decade
As for Long Chau, it was a new “step” of FPT Retail in 2017-2018, when the ICT industry entered a saturation phase. Looking back, during this period, many retail “giants” also entered the pharmaceutical distribution sector, for example, Mobile World acquired the An Khang chain…
However, only FRT Retail has been diligently pursuing this. As a result, currently only Long Chau chain has found a suitable model for expanding stores and has made a profit. The chain has achieved an average revenue of 1.2 billion VND/pharmacy/month.
Long Chau has also surpassed Pharmacity in size, doubling to 2,000 pharmacies by the end of 2024.
Photo: Scale of large pharmacy chains in Vietnam.
According to FPT Retail's Q2/2025 financial report, Long Chau is contributing 70% of consolidated revenue with VND 16,078 billion, up 40% over the same period.
Vietnam is considered a potential healthcare market. A report from Vietnam Report shows that total spending on the healthcare industry in Vietnam is expected to reach 23.3 billion USD by 2025, equivalent to an average per capita of 244 USD.
According to the World Bank, Vietnam is one of the fastest growing economies in the region, with an increasingly advanced healthcare sector in recent years. According to estimates from the World Health Organization (WHO), Vietnam spent 5.7% of its GDP on healthcare in 2020, equivalent to 15.4 billion USD. This figure is forecast to increase to 26.9 billion USD by 2029.
Source: https://dantri.com.vn/kinh-doanh/chuoi-nha-thuoc-long-chau-duoc-dinh-gia-12-ty-usd-20250730121645971.htm
Comment (0)