M&A Vietnam Forum 2022: 'Igniting new opportunities'

With the theme "Igniting new opportunities," the Forum attracted more than 500 attendees to discuss in-depth M&A opportunities in Vietnam.

M&A Vietnam Forum 2022: “Igniting new opportunities”

After a strong spell, the global M&A market is going through a quiet period. According to the latest report of data analysis company GlobalData, the third quarter of 2022 saw the worst global M&A activity in many years, with deal values down 48 per cent compared to the same period in 2021.

The global market has recorded 8,258 M&A deals worth $544 billion in 2022, compared with 9,605 deals worth $1.05 trillion recorded in the same quarter of 2021.

Large-scale transactions have slowed, and the global M&A market is expected to experience a recession next year.

The M&A market in Vietnam also fell into a quieter period compared to 2020-2021.

Data from KPMG shows that in the first 10 months of 2022, the total value of M&A reached $5.7 billion, down 35.3 per cent compared to the same period in 2021. Singapore is the leading country in cross-border transactions with about $1.2 billion, followed by the US with $570 million and South Korea with $370 million.

Similar to 2021, transactions continue to be led by Vietnamese businesses with a value of more than $1.3 billion.

The main industries and fields that attract lots of investments include consumption ($1.2 billion), real estate (nearly $1 billion), and industry ($800 million).

In particular, the energy industry is becoming the hottest in 2022 regarding value growth, reaching nearly $600 million, an increase of six times compared to the whole year of 2021.

Tran Quoc Phuong, deputy minister of Planning and Investment

Speaking at the opening ceremony, Tran Quoc Phuong, deputy minister of Planning and Investment, said that once the economy recovers, foreign investment inflows will accelerate into Vietnam, and M&A activities will also be strongly activated.

“Maintaining political stability, good economic growth, stable macroeconomics, controlling inflation, and improving the business investment environment will be an important foundation to attract investment and promote investment. promoting development, helping Vietnam become an attractive and safe place to attract foreign investment flows,” Phuong said.

Le Trong Minh, editor-in-chief of Vietnam Investment Review, said that the good news was that although the world economy was in a state of instability, Vietnam's economy was recovering strongly after the pandemic and had shown a fairly stable resistance to external impacts thanks to the correct guidelines and decisions of the Party and State.

Le Trong Minh, editor-in-chief of Vietnam Investment Review and Head of the Organising Committee of the Vietnam M&A Forum

“Development, in the new context of the domestic business community, requires a strong addition not only in terms of capital but also in new technological know-how and modern management skills. The emergence of many domestic private economic groups as buyers is gradually becoming a counterweight to the M&A hunters from outside the border,” Minh said.

At the same time, research data also shows that hundreds of billions of US dollars are still being kept by private investment funds around the world, ready to disburse when there are opportunities to enter many fields that Vietnam has to deal with showing high appeal.”

M&A in the technology field, with a wave of digital transformation, in retail and consumer goods, is still active. At the same time, the real estate, energy, and utilities sectors will soon be active again with the increasing participation of Vietnamese businesses as buyers. In particular, there will be M&A opportunities in the financial services sector, as many deals have been in preparation for many years and are about to close in 2023.

M&A opportunities in financial services and many deals have been in preparation for many years and are about to close in 2023. Notably, global capital inflows from private equity funds are becoming the main driving force for the accelerated M&A market.

According to a report by Bain & Company in 2022, private equity funds in Asia are at a record high of $650 billion.

In Vietnam, PE Fund and Venture Capital still grew strongly in the first months of this year despite uncertainties in the capital market and bad debt. In particular, Vietnam's innovation startup ecosystem in 2022 is forecasted to see an investment of about $2 billion, maintaining the form of a rising star in startups in Southeast Asia countries.

The M&A market in Vietnam is forecast to remain active, especially in the context of tight domestic capital, and many businesses are forced to restructure, sell assets, and call for investment due to financial pressure.

The M&A forum 2022 opened with two topics "M&A opportunities in a volatile market" and "Generating new syndicated values" discussed by well-known experts from government and agencies, consultants, and leaders from large-scale corporations. In particular, this year's Forum continued to honour typical M&A deals and consultant firms from 2021 to 2022.

At the Forum, the Organising Committee honoured 10 outstanding investment and M&A deals in 2021-2022, 12 outstanding M&A consulting firms in 2021-2022, and one enterprise that was a consultant and one business with a typical M&A strategy in 2021-2022.

VIR kicks off annual Vietnam M&A Forum 2022 The Organising Committee of the Vietnam Mergers and Acquisitions Forum 2022 (M&A Vietnam Forum 2022) conducted a press conference on November 3 in Hanoi to kick off the largest annual M&A conference.