SK establishes $850 million fund to invest in Vietnam

SK establishes $850 million fund to invest in Vietnam

SK Group, in collaboration with the National Pension Service of Korea (NPS) will establish an investment fund worth $860 million, 50 per cent of which will be invested in Vietnamese enterprises, according to newswire koreainvestors.co.kr.

The fund will be managed by SKS Private Equity and Stonebridge Capital. NPS-SK is launched a short time after SK Group bought a 6.1 per cent stake in Vingroup for $1 billion. Previously, SK Group spent $470 million on acquiring 9.4 per cent in Masan Group in 2018.

Notably, the $1 billion was used to acquire 154.3 million shares of Vingroup as well as 51.4 million shares of VinCommerce.

The average price for this deal was VND113,000 ($4.9) per share, 13 per cent higher than the expected price of at least VND100,000 ($4.3) which Vingroup announced in its previous offer.

Along with investment in large groups in Vietnam, the group also pours money into newly-established enterprises or subsidiaries of local groups listed on the stock exchange.

The group raised a non-refundable aid worth $30 million for the Ministry of Planning and Investment to develop the National Innovation Centre (NIC).

At a working session with the company, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc said that the Vietnamese Party, state, government, and localities always create favourable conditions and protect the legitimate rights of foreign firms, including South Korea’s SK Group, to land technology investment in the country amidst the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

The Vietnamese leader said VinGroup and SK should draw up new co-operation programmes, adding that SK has been on the right track in Vietnam with many projects in smart urban development and electric motorbike production, contributing to the creation of a qualitative change in the production in the country.

SK Group, also known as SK Holdings, is one of the largest chaebols (conglomerates) in South Korea and works in telecommunications, technology, electronics, energy, logistics, and service provision.