An Phat Holdings becomes largest market cap plastic stock in Vietnam

In a single day, An Phat Holdings became the largest market cap plastics company in the Vietnamese securities market

On July 28, the HSX announced its approval of An Phat Holding’s official listing, and congratulated An Phat Holdings for its first day of trading.

Opening at VND41,500 ($1.80) per share, APH hit the +20 per cent ceiling on the first day, closing at VND49,800 ($2.17) per share after at-the-opening order. Trading volume reached nearly 225,000 shares today. After the first trading session, An Phat Holdings' market cap reached VND6.6 trillion ($286.96 million), overcoming all other plastic stocks in the Vietnamese securities market.

The price almost matched its previous IPO, where An Phat Holdings successfully auctioned 4.3 million shares with the average bidding price of VND50,018 ($2.17) per share on June 22, 2020. According to the representative of An Phat Holdings, investors are confident in the potential of the company's green products and market expansion both at home and abroad. As a result, investors went far above the starting price at the IPO as well as the official listing on HSX.

Speaking at the ceremony, Dinh Xuan Cuong, vice chairman cum CEO of An Phat Holdings said, “This is an important milestone marking the new journey of An Phat Holdings as a listed company, a member of HSX. In 2020, An Phat Holdings aims to focus on compostable products. Therefore, having our own raw materials supply chain for production – the most important determinant of product cost – is a top priority. We solved this problem by IPO, mobilising capital for the construction of the first compostable material manufacturing plant in Vietnam.”

Dinh Xuan Cuong, vice chairman cum CEO of An Phat Holdings addressing the ceremony

The company will use the proceeds of the HSX listing to build the first compostable material manufacturing plant in Vietnam called AnBio. The project will put An Phat Holdings on the list of the handful of companies that produce compostable materials in the world, besides BASF, Novamont, NatureWorks, and Total Corbion, among others, and revolutionise its position by turning it into a manufacturer and supplier of green materials. At present, the company is the only Vietnamese enterprise that holds a patent for manufacturing compostable materials.

The raw materials self-supply will help the company reduce production costs by about 30 per cent for subsidiaries while retaining a 25-30 per cent gross profit margin for the parent company. An Phat Holdings targets that compostable products will contribute 40-50 per cent of its packaging revenue by 2023. The construction of the plant is expected to start at the beginning of 2021 at Haiphong to be completed by 2022, with a capacity of 20,000 tonnes per year.

In 2017, An Phat Holdings was established, marking its transition to the holding model from the former company Anh Hai Duy founded in 2002.

Over the past two decades, An Phat Holdings has grown into the No.1 thin monolayer film producer in Southeast Asia with 15 member companies throughout Vietnam and branches in the US, Singapore, South Korea and France, among others. Currently, the company specialises in key areas like compostable materials and finished products, packaging, engineering plastics and SPC flooring, raw material and chemicals for the plastics industry, precision engineering and moulding, and industrial real estate.

An Phat Holdings also directly owns two listed companies – Hanoi Plastics JSC (HSX: NHH) and An Phat Bioplastics JSC (HSX: AAA) – and indirectly own shares of 10 other companies through these two companies.

In 2019, An Phat Holdings’ consolidated revenue and after-tax profit were VND9.513 trillion ($413.6 million) and VND712 billion ($30.96 million), up 19 and 305 per cent over 2018. Gross profit soared by 60 per cent to VND1.082 trillion ($47 million) while gross profit margin improved from 8 to 11 per cent. Total assets reached nearly VND10 trillion ($434.8 million). As of July, the company's earnings per share (EPS) reached VND3,076 (13 US cents).

In 2020, An Phat Holdings set the revenue and net profit targets at VND12 trillion ($521.74 million) and VND650 billion ($28.26 million). In the long term, the company’s driving force will be compostable products thanks to its compostable material manufacturing plant.