Vietnam attracts investors from Europe, America, Japan

There is a wave of investors from Europe, Japan, the UK, and the US looking for investment opportunities in Vietnam, according to M&A experts.

The GMAP conference to help investors learn and determine investment strategies in Vietnam was held in Ho Chi Minh City on November 13.

GMAP investment experts assess that in recent years, Vietnam has successfully attracted investment from many Asian countries such as Japan, Korea, Singapore, Thailand, and China, but there is still a lack of investment from Europe and America.

However, according to Mr. Ivan Alver, Co-founder of Global M&A Partners, Partner and Chairman of Saga Corporate Finance (Norway), on the sidelines of the conference, the European and American capital flows are currently showing positive signs thanks to the country's stable political advantages, growing consumer spending and competitive labor costs. "Investors are shifting to Asian countries, including Vietnam," he explained.

Mr. Ivan Alver, Co-founder of Global M&A Partners, shared in Ho Chi Minh City on November 13. Photo: RECOF

According to the Ministry of Planning and Investment , in the first 10 months of this year, newly registered, adjusted, contributed and purchased shares and capital contributions reached more than 25.7 billion USD, an increase of 14.7% over the same period last year.

Since the beginning of the year, Japanese and American investors have also participated in a number of notable M&A deals, such as SMBC (Japan) spending 1.5 billion USD to buy 15% of VPBank 's privately issued shares or KKR Global Impact (USA) investing 120 million USD in EQuest.

Mr. Frederic De Boer, Co-Chairman of GMAP and Partner of Zetra AG (Switzerland) said that there are two customers in infrastructure production that have facilities in China and are being consulted by this M&A company to explore investment in Vietnam.

"We see European investors are attracted to the manufacturing sector in Vietnam. There have been a few companies investing here and there is a possibility that a series of other companies will follow this trend," he predicted. Recently, a typical large European project is the $1 billion Lego factory in Binh Duong.

Traditional big investors like Japan also prefer to invest in Vietnam. Mr. Sam Yoshida, Global Director of RECOF, said that international investors are interested in areas such as food production - consumer goods, retail, education, non-bank financial technology and logistics. Japanese investors in particular are very interested in logistics, especially cold supply chains.

Confirming that Vietnam is affected by the global economy, Mr. Sam Yoshida said that the Japanese economic situation has a more serious impact on investors due to the devaluation of the yen and business constraints with shareholders. Therefore, investing money abroad, such as in Vietnam, is still a better choice.

RECOF experts said that Japanese investors are also keeping an eye on the Vietnamese stock market but have not taken much action because the market is still small and they see no truly adequate regulations for acquiring a public company.

To further stimulate foreign capital flows into Vietnam, especially through M&A, Mr. Ivan Alver recommended that the policy environment must be more favorable for divestment activities.

"When investing, investors must consider whether they can get it out. Establishing and acquiring businesses in Vietnam is already easy, but the divestment process needs to be improved and made easier to attract investors," he said.

For businesses looking to sell themselves, an M&A deal typically takes an average of nine months. Therefore, this expert notes that businesses need to have an advisory unit at least a year in advance to be able to compare and negotiate a good price and a suitable buyer.

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