HCM City to host Vietnam M&A Forum in August

Hanoi (VNA) – The Vietnam M&A forum 2019, an annual event of mergers and acquisitions for domestic and foreign enterprises, will return in its 11th edition at GEM Conference Centre in Ho Chi Minh City on August 6.

The event has been co-organised by Vietnam Investment Review (VIR) and AVM Vietnam since 2009 under the sponsorship of the Ministry of Planning and Investment.

At a press conference held in Hanoi on July 23, Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment Vo Thanh Thong said Vietnam is promoting M&A activities in tandem with privatisation of state-owned enterprises in various sectors like transportation, infrastructure, food, agriculture, telecommunications, trade, service, tourism, and construction.

Themed “Going for breakthrough”, this year event looks to evaluate, analyse and seek solutions to improving legal frameworks for M&A activities, ensuring sound development of the M&A market while reducing negative impacts of the M&A deals.

The forum will serve as a bridge to connect domestic and foreign investors as well as create favourable conditions for foreign capital to run into the country, Thong stressed.

Main activities at the Vietnam M&A Forum 2019 include a seminar on M&A, award ceremony for best M&A deals, intensive training course on M&A, and special issuance “Overview of Vietnam’s M&A market 2019”.

After a decade of strong growth with thousands of M&A transactions worth nearly 50 billion USD, the M&A market has entered a new era with various opportunities.

Value of M&A deals in 2018 totalled 7.64 billion USD, or 74.9 percent of 2017. In the first half of 2019, M&A transactions were worth 1.9 billion USD, accounting for 53 percent of the amount recorded in the same time last year.

Remarkable transactions were in consumer finance, retail sale, seafood, logistics and education.

Unlike 2017 that Vietnam lured a huge amount of capital from Thailand through M&A, the year 2018 saw the dominant presence of investors from Singapore, Hong Kong (China), the Republic of Korea and Japan. Particularly, the Korean-based SK Group’s M&A deal with Vingroup, worth billions of US dollars, made up 25.64 percent of the total M&A value from July 2018 to July 2019.

Experts said M&A value can reach 6.7 billion USD in 2019, or 88.16 percent of the figure in the previous year. - VNA