Masan Group CEO Danny Le (centre) receives the certificate of enterprise with best M&A deal at the forum on November 24 (Photo: VNA) HCMCity (VNS/VNA) - Masan Group Corporation was one of the top 10companies in terms of investment and M&A deals in 2019-20, with itssubsidiaries striking deals with VinCommerce, Starck, NET, and 3F.
On November 24, at the 2020 M&A Forum, the biggest annual event formergers and acquisitions and investment networking in Vietnam, which isorganised by Vietnam Investment Review newspaper published by the Ministry ofPlanning and Investment, the organising board and jury for the BestM&A Deals announced the top 10 M&A list with Masan in the top spot.
Masan tops the list of 10 enterprises with the best M&A deals in 2019-20
The list of best deals helps businesses and investors understand the size andnature of mergers and acquisitions in Vietnam over the past year.
The value of M&A deals in Vietnam in 2020 is expected to reach 3.5 billionUSD. The value of deals exclusively between Vietnamese firms has increased from12 percent of the total in 2018 to 33 percent in 2019-2020.
In 2019-20, overcoming the difficulties caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, Masanstruck a number of M&A deals with domestic and foreign businesses.
Its CEO, Danny Le, said: “When acquiring stakes in other companies, whether ata strategic level or dominant stake, Masan does not focus on revenues orprofits but how it could be a foundation to serve its overall strategy.
“The foundation here can be good technology, helping create the best product ata reasonable price for the consumer. The foundation can also be a distributionnetwork that will help Masan further expand its already very good distributionsystem or build and maintain a strong Vietnamese brand.”
On December 3, 2019, Masan Group and Vingroup agreed to merge VinCommerce,VinEco and Masan Consumer Holdings to create theretail and consumer goods leader in Vietnam.
VinCommerce achieved revenues of 23.678 trillion VND (1.02 billion USD) in thefirst nine months to account for 42.5 percent of Masan’s total revenues of morethan 55.6 trillion (2.29 billion USD).
Its profitability turnaround game plan was validated by the earnings beforeinterest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) margin improvingfrom 5.1 percent in the first quarter of this year to 2.8 percent in the thirdquarter, andan operating momentum to achieve break-even EBITDA in the fourthquarter.
In February this year Masan HPC Company Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary ofMasan Consumer Corporation, successfully acquired a 52 percent stake in NetDetergent JSC (NETCO), marking its entry into the home and personalcare market, which is worth around 3.1 billion USD.
The acquisition also aligns with Masan’s five-year strategy to broaden itsproduct portfolio and deliver the best possible benefits to 100 million Vietnameseconsumers.
After the acquisition, NETCO achieved outstanding growth in the first ninemonths of the year, with revenues and profits after tax rising by 38 percentand 93 percent year-on-year to 1.109 trillion VND (47.7 million USD) and 104billion VND (4.47 million USD).
In the mining industry, Masan High-Tech Materials (MHT) completed the legalformalities to acquire the tungsten business of Germany’s H.C. Starck GroupGmbHin June 2020.
This acquisition is a strategic step in MHT's vision to become the world'sleading manufacturer of high-tech industrial materials based on an integratedvalue chain platform.
In October MHT signed an agreement to establish a strategic alliance in thetungsten industry with Mitsubishi Materials Corporation with the objective ofdeveloping a leading high-tech tungsten materials platform.
The Japanese corporation acquired a 10 percent stake in MHT for 90 million USD.
On October 3, at a ceremony held to inaugurate the MEATDeli Saigon MeatProcessing Complex in Long An Province, Masan MEAT Life announced its entryinto the poultry meat market by buying a 51 percent stake in 3F VIET JointStock Company, a leading player in the industry, for 613 billion VND (26.37million USD).
At a panel discussion at the M&A Forum on Restructuring Strategy forCorporations Through M&A, Danny Le spoke about the success of Masan Groupin optimising and achieving breakthrough growth through M&A.
He said 25 years ago Masan had been focusing on seasoning, but then sawpotential in fast moving consumer goods and so decided to expand into thenoodle and beverages segments.
It also develops product lines horizontally with a variety of products based onstudying the market, he said.
“Most recently we acquired NETCO. We look at market signals to buy potentialbrands.”
Masan focuses on serving customers and end-users, he said.
“We implement our new strategy through M&A transactions. We understandconsumer demand to carry out strategies using new technologies on a 4.0platform.”/.
VNA
