VietNamNet Bridge – Pham Nhat Vuong, founder and chairman of conglomerate Vingroup, remains the sole Vietnamese cited in Forbes magazine’s annual list of the world’s richest people.

With an anonymous source worth at least US$1.6 billion, Vuong ranked 1.092 out of a record setting 1.645 billionaires who made the list released on March 3.

Forbes estimates that in 2013, Vuong netted US$1 billion through a mix of investments and private equity and real estate deals.

He also participated in a high profile venture to construct Vincom Mega Mall Royal City in Hanoi, touted as Asia’s largest underground retail and entertainment complex, which contributed to increasing Vingroup’s shares by 15% in the past year.

Vuong was born in 1968 in Hanoi and earned his first billion dollars entrepreneuring an international food export company in Ukraine named LLC Technocom.

He returned to Vietnam in early 2000 and began heavily investing in the country’s real estate market.

Additionally, he founded Vinpearl Land (VPL) and Vincom Joint Stock Company (VIC) and was elected as President of the Overseas Vietnamese Entrepreneur Association in August 2009.

In September 2009, Technocom changed its name to Vingroup (Vietnam Investment Group) and relocated its headquarter from Kharkov (Ukraine) to Hanoi, Vietnam.

The VIC was established in May 3, 2002 with an initial chartered capital of VND196 billion which swelled to VND251 billion in only one year. The company increased its chartered capital to VND2,000 billion in September 2009 and stepped up investment in the construction of high-end apartment, office and shopping malls in Hanoi.

Its investments included such projects as Vincom tower in 191 Ba Trieu Street which was sold to the Bank of Investment and Development of Vietnam (BIDV) in 2006 and B Vincom which was sold to Techcombank in late 2011.

The group’s headquarter was moved to Vincom Village in Sai Dong in Long Bien District, Hanoi in early 2012.

At present, Pham Nhat Vuong is the first billionaire (in US dollars) on Vietnam stock exchange with assets totalling nearly US$1 billion.

Source: VOV