Financial sector grabs foreign investors’ interest

Asset management unit of Mirae Asset Financial Group will acquire 100 percent of stake in Tin Phat Fund Management Joint Stock Company(Photo: nhadautu.vn)

According to the The Investor newspaper in the Republic of Korea (RoK), the asset management unit of Mirae Asset Financial Group of the RoK will acquire 100 percent of stake in Tin Phat Fund Management Joint Stock Company and then sell 30 percent of stake to Vietnam’s State Capital Investment Corporation (SCIC) to form a legal entity in Vietnam.

Chairman of the Mirae Asset Financial Group Park Hyeon-joo said the joint venture will serve as Mirae’s forward base in the Southeast Asian market. The group will introduce new funds in Vietnam while diversifying its investment portfolio in real estate, infrastructure and private investment funds.

In April last year, the group’s venture capital arm, Mirae Asset Venture Investment and Korea Investment Partners (KIP) poured investment capital worth 10 million USD into Vietnam-based mobile platform provider Appota.

The RoK conglomerate Lotte Group’s credit card arm has fulfilled all procedures to take over Techcom Finance, a subsidiary of the Vietnam Technological and Commercial Joint Stock Bank (Techcombank). The financial term of the deal was estimated at dozens of millions of USD.

According to the clinched deal, Lotte Card has been the first RoK credit card firm to hold an operation licence in Vietnam.

Foreign investment in the sector is forecast to increase in the future as financial technology (fintech) companies are drawing greater interest from foreign investors.

Vietnamese startup community witnessed large deals from foreign sources like a 28 million USD investment by Standard Chartered Private Equity and Goldman Sachs in the M-Service Joint Stock Company who owns the MoMo app. Champion Crest under the Hong Kong-based fintech firm Credit China Fintech Holdings Ltd, also splashed out 12.73 million USD buying a large amount of shares in the Amigo Technologies JSC.

CEO of HSBC Vietnam Pham Hong Hai said that foreign investors are upbeat about Vietnam’s economic prospect and they are expanding production-business activities in the market. 

“Economic development will open opportunities for banking sector due to the increasing financial demand”, he noted.

Source: VNA