His brother Nguyen Xuan Thuy is known for once leading a famous football club. Another brother, Nguyen Duc Thuy, also made a big investment in football

Thien’s family has seven siblings, including those who own enterprises and stocks worth trillions of dong. Among them, three are famous among the business community as big investors in football.

Nguyen Van Thien, born in 1970, the owner of Xuan Thien Group, has become even more famous following his statement on the first days of the new year 2025 that he will try all means and create the most favorable conditions to treat Nguyen Xuan Son, who was seriously injured in the second leg of the 2024 ASEAN Cup final against Thailand on the evening of January 5, 2025.

From Brazil, Nguyen Xuan Son (his birth name is Rafaelson Fernandes), born in 1997, came to Vietnam in late 2019 and joined Nam Dinh Football Club, and the national squad later. With seven spectacular goals scored at ASEAN Cup, he has been applauded by Vietnamese people.

Thien is known as the person who prevented Nguyen Xuan Son (Rafaelson) from falling into the hands of a team from Saudi Arabia at the end of the 2023-2024 season. 

The footballer officially got Vietnamese citizenship on September 20, 2024 with the Vietnamese name Nguyen Xuan Son.

Currently, Thien is president of Xuan Thien Group, the sponsor of Thep Xanh Nam Dinh Club. 

In 2022, Xuan Thien Group signed a 4-year sponsorship contract worth VND200 billion with the football club from Nam Dinh. The investment allowed the club to recruit many good footballers, including Van Toan, Hong Duy and Nguyen Xuan Son.

Nguyen Duc Thuy, Thien’s younger brother, is also famous among the business community and football fans. Thuy, born in 1976, was president of XuanThanh Group and became well known together with Sai Gon Xuan Thanh Football Club.

Later, Thuy transferred the club to his younger brother Nguyen Xuan Thuy, called Bau Thuy (Boss Thuy). The HCM City club gained great achievements, but it was finally dissolved in August 2013. 

In late 2023, LPBank and HAGL Club owned by Doan Nguyen Duc (Boss Duc) signed a comprehensive cooperation agreement, under which the club was renamed as LP Bank HAGL. 

Thien’s prestige and the cooperation with Boss Duc marked an impressive comeback for the billionaire brothers.

Large-scale projects

The three brothers became famous when injecting money into football and a series of large projects. They are among the richest Vietnamese billionaires with huge assets, super cars and super villas in Ninh Binh.

Nguyen Duc Thuy is the founder of Thaiholdings JSC. In April 2021, he became president of LPBank (its previous name was LienVietPost Bank).

Thuy was once president of ThaiGroup and president of Thaiholdings (THD) and Kim Lien Tourism JSC, which owns Kim Lien Hotel, located on a very advantageous position in Hanoi.

Thuy is now not holding any position at Thaiholdings, but he was the founder of the company. Thuy’s younger brother – Nguyen Van Thuyet – was also once chair of Thaiholdings’ board of directors.

In 2021, Thuy owned 87.4 million THD shares, worth tens of trillion of dong. THD shares were once traded at VND250,000 per share, but the prices later dropped to VND36,000 per share on January 7, 2025.

Thuy then was ranked just behind six dollar billionaires recognized by Forbes. However, Thuy is no longer holding THD shares.

As of the end of June 2024, Thuy had 70.7 million LPB shares, or 2.76 percent. On January 7, 2025, LPB shares were traded at VND30,300 per share, so, the volume of LPB shares held by Thuy is valued at VND2.142 trillion.

The businessman has a lot of super cars, including Rolls-Royce Phantom (the first in NinhBinh), 3 Rolls-Royce Ghosts and 1 Maybach 62s. He also has Mercedes S-Class, BMW 7-Series, Range Rover, Lexus Ls600hl, Lx570 and X5 4.8.

In late 2021, Thuy caught the public’s attention with the news that Thaiholdings contributed capital to Thaispace JSC, which was established to conduct the first flight to space from Phu Quoc, Vietnam once the flight gets license from agencies.

Meanwhile, Nguyen Van Thien has plans to invest tens of billion of dollars in many fields, from energy, building materials, hi-tech agriculture, to logistics, real estate and resorts.

To date, Xuan Thien has developed over 20 power projects with a total capacity of 2,000MW.

Manh Ha