The investment fund manager VinaCapital has boosted the net asset value by US$300 million of its Vietnam Opportunity Fund (VOF), formerly valued at US$244 million, the firm announced yesterday.
The firm said it scaled up capital in preparation for investment in Vietnam’s large corporations such as Electricity of Vietnam (EVN) and the Bank for Foreign Trade of Vietnam (Vietcombank), which are about to go public.
In this sixth fundraising of the VOF, investors subscribed for up to US$400 million worth of the fund units, four times higher than the initial target. However, the fund manager decided to approve only around US$300 million in line with its investment plan in the near future, which helped bring the fund’s total net assets to nearly US$600 million.
VinaCapital general director Don Lam and Research Department director Fiachra Mac Cana said they met with investors in Asia, Europe and the US and found great interest in the new shares among VOF’s existing shareholders and new investors.
The success at the fundraising round is a clear indicator of investor’s confidence in the continued growth of Vietnam’s economy and in the fund’s ability to capitalize on investment opportunities created by that growth, they said.
The London Stock Exchanged-listed fund will issue nearly 128 million common shares at face value of $2.38 a share, amounting to more than $304.6 million. The new shares started trading on the London Stock Exchange on November 16.
Established in September 2003, VOF focuses investment on sectors having high growth rates such as consumer products, retail, finance, real estate, and education, and its investment market is Indochina, with Vietnam accounting for 70 per cent of its capital. It now is a main shareholder in some Vietnam’s leading companies such as Kinh Do Confectionery Corp and Vinamilk.
VOF’s net asset value (NAV) per share has increased 107 per cent and, in the first three quarters of this year alone it had a profit growth of over 34 per cent. It is one of the earliest established, most successful and biggest funds in Vietnam to date.
Besides VOF, the fund manager VinaCapital also manages two other funds, the $205 million real estate fund VinaLand and the newly-established $50-million DFJ VinaCapital L.P. investing in ICT companies.
SGT, VNA
Vietnamese
