VietNamNet Bridge - Though setting very high requirements on investors, many financially powerful corporations still want to become strategic shareholders of Airports Corporation of Vietnam (ACV).

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Many financially powerful corporations  want to become strategic shareholders of Airports Corporation of Vietnam 

IPP, known as a luxury goods distributor, has sent a document to ACV’s Equitization Steering Board and the Ministry of Transport (MOT) expressing its willingness to become a strategic investor of the airport development corporation.

The company owned by the renowned businessman Jonathan Hanh Nguyen states in the document that it wants 5 percent of ACV’s chartered capital.

In principle, the businesses in the aviation sector will have more privileges in approaching ACV stakes than finance institutions and businesses in other fields.
An institution or enterprise which operates in the aviation sector in order to be eligible for becoming ACV’s strategic shareholder, has to manage at least 10 airports and have revenue of $1.5 billion as of 2014. Besides, by the end of 2014, its stockholder equity must not be lower than $2 billion.

The required chartered capital is higher for a financial investment company, $5 billion.

Meanwhile, in the document to MOT, IPP’s CEO Le Hong Thuy Tien showed that IPP is a trade service company with chartered capital of VND2.5 trillion, or $110 million.

However, Tien said, the founder of the company and now chair of IPP, Jonathan Hanh Nguyen has 20 years of experience in the aviation sector as he worked as finance inspector at Boeing Subcontractor and Indochina CEO of Philippines Airlines.

IPP is a familiar name to MOT and ACV. It was one of the Vietnamese businesses which applied for the concession to exploit the Phu Quoc International Airport after MOT asked for the government’s permission to do so under ACV’s management.

Jonathan Hanh Nguyen’s three companies last September spent VND310 billion to acquire 23.6 percent of stakes of Sasco, a subsidiary of ACV.

The Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BIDV), one of the biggest commercial banks in the country, has also expressed its willingness to buy 5 percent of ACV stakes.

Meanwhile, Aeroport de Paris (ADP) said it wants to buy all the 20 percent of ACV stakes offered to strategic shareholders.

In principle, the businesses in the aviation sector will have more privileges in approaching ACV stakes than finance institutions and businesses in other fields.

MOT has not given answers to proposals from domestic businesses to become ACC's strategic shareholders. Meanwhile, an analyst said that MOT’s required high financial capability would be the biggest barrier.

BIDV chair Tran Bac Ha has recently sent a document to the Prime Minister complaining that the requirement on the chartered capital of $5 billion ‘places big difficulties on BIDV’.

Ha, asked to adjust the requirements on strategic shareholders, said the requirement would deprive Vietnamese institutions of the opportunities to make capital contributions to ACV.


VNE