BIG Investment Group secures strategic equity investment

Announced on August 19, this is the group's first international capital raise and lands as it prepares to leave Vietnam's Unlisted Public Company Market (UPCoM) market. BIG is targeting a listing on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange by September 2026, a step that would take it from the unlisted public company board onto Vietnam's main exchange, with the higher disclosure, governance and free-float requirements that come with it.

The commitment carries no debt onto BIG's own balance sheet and is non-dilutive to existing BIG shareholders. Sized against the group's own financials, the commitment is still substantial.

$5 million is equivalent to about 38 per cent of the group's charter capital and more than three times its 2025 net profit after tax. The capital functions as anchor firepower for an acquisition programme in the hospitality and food, beverage, and entertainment sectors in central Ho Chi Minh City, with individual transactions financed separately as they close.

Vietnam drew 21.2 million international visitors in 2025 and recorded 2.5 million arrivals in January 2026 alone, the highest monthly figure on record and 21 per cent up on the previous month. The government is targeting 25 million foreign visitors this year and 35 million by 2030, compared with a compound annual growth rate of about 10 per cent since 2011.

The hotel market has tightened accordingly. Ho Chi Minh City occupancy reached 83 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2025, with an average daily rate of VND3.6 million (about $137), and revenue per available room back at pre-pandemic levels.

JLL expects a surge in hotel transactions this year, concentrated in the four- and five-star segments in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, and notes that foreign buyers are underwriting Vietnamese hotel assets at 7 per cent to 9 per cent returns, compared with 3 per cent to 4 per cent in mature markets such as Japan and Australia.

The gap BIG is targeting the night economy. Ho Chi Minh City, a city of more than 14 million, has set out to become one of Asia's leading centres for MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, and Exhibitions) tourism and the night-time economy, with the Saigon River as the spine for new night tourism products.

The city's own tourism authorities have identified the constraint: too few quality venues trading after 10 pm for international visitors, and nothing at the scale of the night entertainment complexes that Singapore and Bangkok have built.

"Occupancy is back, rates are back, and the assets are still priced as though neither had happened," said Huy Nhat Vo Phi, founder and CEO at BIG Investment Group. "What has been missing for a company our size is capital that arrives before the transaction rather than after it. That is what this investment brings. It lets us move on a District 1 asset when it comes up, instead of raising funds deal-by-deal and losing to whoever already has capital in place."

BIG operates through five member companies covering hospitality, food and beverage, agricultural commodity trading, export and property brokerage. Its stated plan is to run hotels on an asset-light model, taking on management mandates, leasebacks and franchises rather than tying up capital in freehold property. It also plans to bundle co-living, co-working, dining, and entertainment into a single building under a membership scheme.

The group's published targets are for 650 hotel rooms in 2026, rising to 2,750 by 2029 and 8,750 by 2035. Group revenue is targeted at $20.81 million this year, rising to $78 million by 2031, with hospitality overtaking commodity trading as the largest revenue line over that period, based on the company’s internal targets.

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