Mr Tran Dinh Long

The ‘steel King’ Tran Dinh Long is expected to become the next dollar billionaire.

Nguyen Dang Quang majored in mathematics and physics with a doctorate in Nuclear Physics granted by the University of Applied Physics under the Belarus Academy of Sciences.

However, in Vietnam, he is better known as a businessman. He started up in Russia in 1990s, when he sold instant noodles to Vietnamese in Russia. Later, he built a factory with the capacity of 30 million packages a month which made noodles, soy sauce, fish sauce and chili sauce to local consumers.

It is fish sauce which has helped him become the newest Vietnamese dollar billionaire. Masan Group, where he is president, is one of the biggest Vietnamese consumer goods manufacturers. However, Quang only owns 10 Masan shares (MSN) worth VND1 million.

But he is the major shareholder of Masan Corp, which is directly and indirectly holding 50 percent of Masan Group’s shares. Bloomberg Billionaires Index estimates that Quang now has $1.2 billion worth of stock assets, becoming the third Vietnamese dollar billionaire, after Pham Nhat Vuong of Vingroup, and Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao of Vietjet Air.

The other two billionaires are earning big money which is increasing their asset value daily.

Phu Long Real Estate, a subsidiary of Sovico Group owned by Thao and her husband, has acquired all the stakes that Posco E&C held in Splendora urban area project. The $2.57 billion project was initially developed by a 50/50 joint venture between Posco E&C and Vinaconex.

With the move, Phu Long, which has been developing many projects in HCMC, has joined the northern real estate market.

Not only targeting the northern market, Thao is also planning to invest in petroleum. Sovico is one of two Vietnamese institutional investors who want to buy PV Oil shares at its IPO, slated for January 25.

Meanwhile, Pham Nhat Vuong’s stock assets have risen by $600 million since the end of November 2017. According to Forbes, by January 16, Vuong had $4.8 billion worth of stock assets, ranking 453rd in the world’s top 500 billionaires.

Analysts have predicted the appearance of one more dollar billionaire – Tran Dinh Long, dubbed as the ‘steel King’.

HPG shares of Hoa Phat Group were traded at VND59,700 per share on January 20. This means that Long, the president of Hoa Phat, who holds 381 million HPG, has VND22.778 trillion, or more than $1 billion.

With these assets, Long has jumped to the third position on the list of the richest stock billionaires.

US$1=VND22,000

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