Kinh Do plans to expand in non-core sectors

Talking with Tuoi Tre, Pham Dinh Nguyen, mayor of PhinDeli town in Wyoming, US, confirmed the information that Kinh Do Corp has become a strategic shareholder of PhinDeli Joint Stock Co after the two parties reached a strategic business cooperation deal.

Although the value of the investment as well as the percentage of ownership is not revealed, according to Tuoi Tre’s source, Kinh Do now owns over 51 percent stake in PhinDeli.

Nguyen founded the Ho Chi Minh City-headquartered coffee firm PhinDeli Co in 2013 after bidding US$900,000 at an auction to win the town and becoming the new owner and ‘mayor’ of Buford, Wyoming, in the US in 2012.

One year later, he came up with the plan to change the name of what was deemed the nation’s smallest town and sell Vietnamese coffee there.

"The PhinDeli town is a personal property, completely unrelated to the deal with Kinh Do and I have no intention of reselling this town," Nguyen said.

On Monday, Reuters reported that Vietnam's confectionery maker Kinh Do Corp could buy 24 percent of shares in state-run vegetable oil firm Vocarimex following an approval by its shareholders at an annual general meeting.

Vocarimex, with a total registered capital of VND1.2 trillion ($56 million), seeks to raise at least VND428 billion through its initial public offering on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange on July 25, Reutersreported.

The country’s cooking oil market size is now estimated at some VND22.3 trillion, or over US$1 billion, with annual growth of 7-9 percent, while the respective figures for the instant coffee market are VND4.75 trillion and 15-20 percent, Tran Quoc Viet, deputy general director of Kinh Do, told The Saigon Times newspaper.

Vocarimex is now a major cooking oil producer in the domestic market with two popular cooking oil brands, Tuong An and Nakydaco. It also owns stakes in Cai Lan Oils and Fats Industries Co. Ltd, owner of Neptune and Simply cooking oil products, and Golden Hope Nha Be Co, owner of Marvela cooking oil, the newspaper reported.

In March this year, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung signed a decision giving the green light to the  equitization plan of Vocarimex. Accordingly, the state would own 36 percent stake in the firm, leaving strategic investors and employees and outsiders to buy 32 percent and 38 stake in the vegetable oil company.

Kinh Do in June announced that it would partner with the Taiwanese-owned Saigon Ve Wong to produce instant noodles and spices in the third quarter of this year.

At the meeting, Kinh Do’s shareholders also agreed on this year’s revenue target of VND5.15 trillion and pre-tax profit of VND660 billion, rising 13 percent and 6.6 percent respectively over last year’s figure. The company expects to offer its shareholders a dividend of 20 percent in cash, according to The Saigon Times.

Kinh Do Corp recorded a net profit of VND502 billion ($23.8 million) in 2013, up 42 percent from a year earlier, while revenue increased 6 percent to VND4.6 trillion.