Two local billionaires lose out on first day of 2020

Chairman of Masan Group Nguyen Dang Quang loses 4 million USD in his assets since March 2019. (Photo: vietnamfinance.vn)

On March, 2019, Forbes 2020 World Billionaires list included five billionaires from Vietnam with total assets of 13.6 billion USD.

They included returnees Pham Nhat Vuong, Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao and Tran Ba Duong and newcomers Ho Hung Anh and Nguyen Dang Quang. The list, led by Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of online retail site Amazon, includes 2,153 billionaires with total assets of 8.7 trillion USD.

On the first day of 2020, while the total assets of the five Vietnamese billionaires increased by 8 million USD to hit 14.4 billion USD, the two newcomers saw their personal wealth decrease.

As of January 1, in the update of Forbes list of billionaires, chairman of consumer goods and natural resources firm Masan Group Nguyen Dang Quang lost 4 million USD in his assets. Now at 1 billion USD, he sits at 2,167th, 450 places lower than his ranking last year.

Data from the local stock market shows continuous declining sessions pulled Masan's shares (MSN) down from a peak of 91,000 VND (3.9 USD) in May to 56,500 VND on the last working day of December.

Also a newcomer to the list, Ho Hung Anh, Chairman of Vietnam Technological and Commercial Joint Stock Bank (Techcombank), lost 3 million USD and 421 places in the ranking. He now ranks 1,770th in the list with assets of 1.4 billion USD.

Last year, Techcombank recorded pre-tax profit of nearly 10.7 trillion VND, an year-on-year increase of 31 percent. The bank is the second largest bank in Vietnam after State-owned bank Vietcombank.

Billionaire Ho Hung Anh - Screenshot from Forbes

However, its shares declined badly in the market in June and August, making firm lose about 12 percent in the market value.

According to Forbes, both Masan and Techcombank are major institutions in Vietnam, ranked in the top 10 largest enterprises on the HCM Stock Exchange. Techcombank Chairman Ho Hung Anh and Masan Chairman Nguyen Dang Quang used to manage both Techcombank and Masan. Last year, Anh withdrew from Masan's vice chairman position to focus on Techcombank under the local banking industry’s regulations. Quang, on the other hand, is still vice chairman of Techcombank.

Not losing a penny from the assets last year, chairman of Thaco – the biggest car company in Vietnam – Tran Ba Duong and his family still have 1.7 billion USD. But they lost 128 places in list to rank 1,477th.

Vingroup Chairman Pham Nhat Vuong, who is still the richest man in Vietnam with 7.6 billion USD in assets, added another 1 billion USD to his assets but fell 13 places and now ranks 242nd in the list. At certain points last year, Vuong was among the 200 richest people on the planet.

Vingroup Chairman Pham Nhat Vuong.-Screenshot from Forbes website

Earlier, Vuong shared with Bloomberg that he would spend 2 billion USD of his personal assets by selling a 10 percent stake in Vingroup to bring the group’s car of VinFast to the US market.

Vietnam's first female billionaire Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao became richer and has a higher rank. Thao’s assets increased by 4 million USD to reach 2.7 billion USD and she is up 73 places from last year to rank 935th.

Vietjet Air CEO and President Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao (Photo: cafef.vn)

Thao’s budget airline, VietJet Air, which offers more than 300 flights a day, operates some 40 percent of the nation's flights and became public in February 2017. She also has investments in HDBank and real estate.

At the end of last year, shares of VietJet Air added 1.2 percent to reach 146,200 VND each while Vingroup’s shares stayed unchanged at 115,000 VND.