Investment funds have realised gains from investments in food products
makers like Masan Group (MSN), Vinamilk (VNM) and Kinh Do (KDC) – even
as real estate investments over the past two years have proven
disappointing.
In the past two months, Private Equity New Markets
II (PENM II), under the management of Denmark's BankInvest – which owns
three investment funds in Vietnam – has sold 4.5 million shares of MSN
out of its total holdings of 49.5 million shares, realising gains of
over 500 billion VND(23.8 million USD) over the past two years.
PENM
managing director Hans Christian Jacobsen said the investment strategy
of the fund is focused on food and consumer goods companies with a
strong band name and clear vision and development strategies.
BankInvest's
current Vietnam portfolio includes 13 companies operating in food
processing, consumer products, finance and construction, with an average
investment per company of 2-25 million USD.
Dairy giant Vinamilk
(VNM) has proven to be a favourite invesment target for foreign funds.
TNK Capital Partners director Tran Vinh Du said the success factors of
Vinamilk are its strong brand name, good marketing strategy and
overwhelming market share.
"Foreign investors want to buy more
VNM shares but VNM is always in the situation that it has reached its
limit for foreign ownership," Du said.
The real estate market was
expected to continue to remain frozen for the foreseeable future,
forcing many investment funds to restructure their portfolios in order
to cut their losses.
By early November, five property funds had
seen their certificates trading at significantly high discount rates
compared to their total net asset value (NAV), according to LCF
Rothschild, which tracks over 100 investment funds around the world.
Aseana Properties (ASP), VinaLand (VNL) and Vietnam Property Holding
(VPH) all had discount rates of 45-57 percent.
"It's too late now
to simply say ‘don't invest in offices or apartments’," Andy Ho,
managing director and head of investment for VinaCapital, told the
newspaper Nhip cau dau tu (Investment Bridge). "We predicted this was
going to happen, and we have been divesting capital [from the property
market] for the past two years."
Ho said VinaCapital will no
longer invest in office and apartment projects that are new or under
construction but will only look at established projects.
VinaCapital,
which now owns VinaLand, has successfully sold its 70-percent stake in
the five-star Hilton Hanoi Opera, earning a return of about 8 million
USD on its three-year investment, he noted.
VPH, managed by
Saigon Asset Management (SAM), also said most listed property companies
in which VPH has invested have reported much lower profits compared to
last year. Nine-month profits of Industrial Urban Development Co No 2
(D2D), NBB Investment Corp (NBB) and Century 21 Co (C21) are all down
65-85 percent year-on-year.
"The situation is very bad this year
and we don't have any positive information to provide," said SAM
chairman and general director Louis Nguyen. /.