HO CHI MINH CITY — Vietnam’s Vingroup says it is considering listing its car unit through a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, just days after Singapore’s Grab revealed a similar move.
The announcement, made on the Vingroup website, is the first confirmation that Vietnam’s biggest domestically listed company is considering listing VinFast. Earlier reports that it was considering an IPO in the U.S. — which would be a first for a Vietnamese company — drove up Vingroup’s shares in Ho Chi Minh City by 6% on Tuesday.
Vingroup, a conglomerate founded by the country’s richest man, posted the news the same week that Grab announced it will merge with a Nasdaq-listed SPAC in a deal that values the company at $40 billion. While Sea Group, also based in Singapore, became the first company from the region to score a major listing in the U.S. in 2017, a market debut by VinFast could be part of an IPO wave by Southeast Asian companies including Gojek, Tokopedia and Traveloka of Indonesia.
The move would also help VinFast, Vietnam’s first automaker, raise funds for an aggressive expansion, including a proposal to make electric vehicle batteries with Foxconn, test autonomous cars in California and sell EVs to Americans and Europeans.
“Vingroup wants to make clear that the company regularly reviews options to raise capital and invest in VinFast,” the posting on the website said. “Typically there are capital-raising opportunities such as direct capital investment in a company, issuing new shares, merging with a special purpose acquisition company, or other transactions.”
