The PAN Group completes private placement to Sojitz Group

Food processing line of The PAN Group

The PAN Group’s charter capital increased from VND1.202 trillion ($53.2 million) to VND1.336 trillion ($59.1 million). This private placement provides PAN with more financial resources to invest and implement the next M&A projects in its development strategy in agriculture and food industries. More importantly, Sojitz has been chosen as a strategic partner of PAN to cooperate on upgrading Vietnam’s agricultural and food products for distribution to domestic and international markets.

"This is an important milestone in The PAN Group’s development path. Our selection criteria focused on finding a business partner rather than choosing a purely financial investment organisation. Together with the capital contribution, we established a Collaboration Committee which includes key leaders from the two groups, and is chaired by the chairman of The PAN Group. The committee will bring together top industrial experts from Vietnam and Japan in order to formulate and promote the implementation of agricultural and food projects of the two parties in Vietnam and other countries in the region. I believe that the cooperation will contribute to leveraging Vietnamese agricultural and food products in international markets,” said Nguyen Thi Tra My, chief executive officer of The PAN Group.

The cookie processing line of The PAN Group

Commenting on the deal, the representative of the advisor, Nguyen Ngoc Anh, director of Investment Banking North-Saigon Securities Incorporation (SSI), said: "This is a special deal in the M&A market of the agricultural and food sectors. Japanese investors are very selective about choosing partners and often conduct thorough research before making investment decisions. Meanwhile, The PAN Group, when choosing a strategic partner, also set stringent criteria as the company has an attractive business strategy and is in the process of accelerating its development.”

“In addition to the need for capital, PAN desired a partner who can understand and fully support its development strategy, have professional management system, and can help bring PAN’s products to the world market. Therefore we have been working together for a long time to study each other's development strategies, and considered the possible added value for each party after the deal."

Besides the capital investment, the two parties also committed to share market information from Vietnam, Japan, and the world in order to expand and develop new potential markets and products for PAN’s members, as well as consult and assess the existing resources and advantages of PAN in order to promote Vietnamese products to the world market.

The capital contribution to PAN also marked a turning point in Sojitz's investment strategy as it marks Sojitz return to investing in listed companies after many years. The deal brought about strategic cooperation between the two companies which have strict and professional criteria in choosing partners for joint development.

The PAN Group is currently the leading company in agriculture and food production, with total assets of VND7.6 trillion ($336.3 million) at the end of the second quarter of 2018 and estimated revenue of VND8.786 trillion ($388.8 million) by the end of 2018. PAN has achieved robust CAGR in revenue, with nearly 80 per cent over the past five years.

Meanwhile, Sojitz is a multidisciplinary Japanese company operating globally, which consists of 440 subsidiaries and affiliates located throughout the world. The company reported a total revenue of JPY1,816 billion ($16.2 billion) and assets of JPY2,350 billion ($21 billion). Sojitz has been investing in Vietnam since the early 1970s in various fields, including finance, energy, mineral resources, food, agriculture, and forest resources, consumer goods, and industrial parks.