Standard Chartered PE announces 2nd Vietnam investment in 2 weeks
Standard Chartered PE announces 2nd Vietnam investment in 2 weeks
The private equity arm of Standard Chartered on Monday unveiled its investment in a leading Vietnamese agribusiness firm, only two weeks after it acquired a multimillion-dollar stake in a major restaurant chain operator in the Southeast Asian country.
Standard Chartered Private Equity (SCPE) has successfully acquired a significant minority stake in An Giang Plant Protection JSC (AGPPS), a market leader in the agricultural sector of Vietnam, the private equity firm said.
SCPE did not disclose the value of the AGPPS deal.
But Vietnam Investment Review, an English-language economic newswire based in Hanoi, reported on Tuesday that Vietnam Opportunity Fund, a closed-end fund, had agreed to sell its 23.6 percent stake in AGPPS for US$63.1 million, or $4.10 per share, to SCPE.
The London-listed fund is managed by VinaCapital, a leading asset management group in Vietnam.
On September 15, SCPE also announced it had bought a significant minority stake in Golden Gate Trade & Services JSC, a subsidiary of the Golden Gate Group, the owner and operator of 11 restaurant chains in Vietnam.
The $35 million deal marked SCPE’s first investment in the Southeast Asian country.
AGPPS, based in the Mekong Delta province of An Giang, is the largest distributor of plant protection chemicals and the largest distributor of rice seeds in Vietnam. The company is also an emerging aggregator and processor of rice.
The firm has a network of 500 wholesalers and 4,500 retail outlets countrywide. Last year the company posted $354 million in revenue, a 17 percent year-on-year increase, according to Vietnam Investment Review.
AGPPS generated revenue of $200 million in the first half of this year, whereas its full-year target is $399 million.
SCPE said it will provide strategic input into AGPPS’s business planning and support the management in its development plans.
“We are privileged to support AGPPS’s laudable mission of bringing to the market commercially sound products and services that bolster the profitability of the Vietnamese rice value chain, while raising the standard of living for potentially millions of farmers,” Bert Kwan, head of Southeast Asia (excluding Indonesia) at SCPE, commented in a statement.
AGPPS chairman Huynh Van Thon expressed his belief that SCPE will “play a vital role in contributing to the growth of AGPPS’s operations in the rice, plant protection chemicals and seed segments, and other promising operations.”
“SCPE is a shareholder that fully understands and strongly supports AGPPS’s strategy in developing the agricultural value chain,” Thon said.
“We believe that SCPE will become a strategic shareholder that supports AGPPS to successfully develop an agricultural value chain, thereby contributing to the development of agriculture in Vietnam and bringing more value to the farmers.”
Standard Chartered Private Equity Limited is a private equity and venture capital arm of Standard Chartered, specializing in investing in balance sheet restructuring, expansion and growth capital, acquisitions, and management buyouts.
The company has invested some $6 billion in 100 companies in markets where Standard Chartered operates.
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