Blue Point looking to buy 90 per cent stake in IDP

Blue Point wants to buy 90 per cent stake in IDP

In addition, IDP also released the information that Howard Holding PTE managed by VinaCapital sold 28 per cent stake in IDP to decrease its ownership to 26 per cent. At present, this investment fund and relevant parties are holding 37 per cent stake.

Previously, in December 2014, VinaCapital Vietnam Opportunity Fund and Japan's Daiwa PI Partners invested approximately $45 million to own a 70 per cent stake in IDP.

Established in 2004, IDP has the main trademark Ba Vi for its milk products, which include fresh milk and yoghurt. It also has other products such as z'Dozi and Purina fresh milk.

Blue Point was established in 2015 and specialises in consumer goods manufacturing. The group previously expressed ambitions to set foot in the dairy and phamarceutical sector to become one of Vietnam’s largest consumer-retail groups.

On the July 4 extraodiary shareholders' meeting, the Board of Directors of IDP added two members, namely To Hai and Ho Sy Tuan Phat. In addition, Tuan Phat was appointed as general director of Long Thanh Milk JSC (Lothamilk) (another dairy company). Before becoming 100 per cent domestic owned, Lothamilk was a joint venture with a Taiwanese partner.

Along with the purchase between Blue Point and IDP, the dairy sectorsaw numerous other M&A deals. One of these was the transaction between Vinamilk and GNTFoods, making Vinamilk the official owner of the Moc Chau milk brand.

In December 2019, the Vietnam Dairy Association forecast that Vietnam's dairy industry would grow by 9-10 per cent this year and local milk consumption would reach 28 litres per capita in 2020.

At present, Vietnam's demand for milk is 26 litres per capita per year, lower than the 35 litres in Thailand, 45 litres in Singapore, and 80-100 litres in Europe. Moreover, the dairy industry only meets about 35 per cent of the domestic demand.

Under the calculation of existing manufacturing capacity, domestic fresh millk production is expected to reach 1 billion litres, meeting 38 per cent of the domestic demand in 2020, which will increase to 1.4 billion litres, meeting 40 per cent of the demand by 2025.

According to the Livestock Production Department, Vietnam plans to have 500,000 dairy cows producing a million tonnes of milk in 2020, a growth of more than 11 per cent on-year. The country is planning to have 700,000 cows and produce two million tonnes of milk by 2030.