The withdrawal of foreign corporations

At the end of 2015, Casino Group (France) announced its withdrawal from the Vietnamese market by selling the Big C supermarket system. Entering Vietnam in 1998, Big C was one of the largest retail chains in the country. The French giant said that it wanted to sell its retail business to pay off debt.

Immediately, Lotte Group (Korea), Central Group and TCC Holding (both from Thailand), Saigon Co.op and Masan Group (Vietnam) joined the race to acquire Big C.

In April 2016, Big C was officially sold to Central Group for more than 1 billion USD. In 2021, Big C changed its name to GO! and Tops Market.

Another big deal was Metro. Metro was owned by retail group Metro AG (Germany). Metro continuously reported losses, with 89-160 billion VND each year, totaling nearly 600 billion VND.

In 2014, Metro in Vietnam officially transferred all 19 wholesale stores and related real estate portfolios worth 655 million euros to BJC. After a few years of operation with a new owner, Metro was renamed MM Mega Market.

Auchan - another retailer from Europe - also left Vietnam after selling its supermarket chain to a local partner. Entering Vietnam in 2015, Auchan had 18 supermarkets in Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi and Tay Ninh. In 2019, Auchan announced its decision to sell the Auchan supermarket system in Vietnam. After a period of negotiation, Saigon Co.op reached an agreement to acquire all Auchan retail operations in the country. The value of the deal is not disclosed, but according to experts, Auchan did not get profit from this deal.

Nguyen Kim used to be the leading name in Vietnam in the field of electronics retail as it appeared first in the market. NKT Company was established in 2014 with charter capital of 800 billion VND. At that time, entrepreneur Nguyen Van Kim and his family members held nearly 90% of the shares of NKT company.

In 2015, Central Retail (Thailand) bought 49% of the shares of NKT Company. In June 2019, companies related to Central Retail acquired all remaining 51% shares of NKT.

The value of this deal, according to Central Retail, is 2,600 billion VND, including 2,250 billion VND in cash and 350 billion VND as long-term debts.

In 2017, the electronics market also witnessed a large M&A deal. Mobile World spent 2,500 billion VND to buy Tran Anh Digital World JSC. Before being acquired, Tran Anh was a large retail brand with a system of 34 large-scale supermarkets in prime locations. Over a year later, Mobile World changed the name of Tran Anh electronic stores into Dien May Xanh. Tran Anh's TAG stock was also delisted from the Hanoi Stock Exchange (HNX).

Another big deal is Vingroup selling Vinmart and VinEco to Masan Group.

In late 2019, the retail market was surprised with the news that Vingroup withdrew from the retail industry. In December 2019, Vingroup announced it would sell VinCommerce, which owned the VinMart supermarket chain and VinMart + convenience stores, to Masan Group. After the acquisition, Masan restructured, and renamed VinMart to WinMart, and VinEco to WinEco.

Duy Anh