Forbes rich list features six Vietnamese billionaires

Vietnam has six billionaires on the latest Forbes global rich list released on Friday, with three of them posting an increase in their net worth.

They are chairman of Vietnam’s largest private conglomerate Vingroup Pham Nhat Vuong, chairman of steel giant Hoa Phat Group Tran Dinh Long, chairwoman of private carrier Vietjet Air, chairman of automaker Thaco Tran Ba Duong, chairman of Techcombank Ho Hung Anh, and chairman of retail giant Masan Group Nguyen Dang Quang.

These six billionaires together hold a combined fortune of $13.4 billion, which represents a decrease of $400 million compared to Forbes' last update on March 31, 2024. However, this is an increase of $800 million from the end of 2023.

The wealthiest individual in Vietnam remains to be Vuong, who is also CEO of electric vehicle maker VinFast, with a net worth of $4.1 billion. The figure was down $200 million from the beginning of the year, positioning him at 833rd on the ranking.

The decline was attributed to a 9% drop in VIC, the ticker of Vingroup, in the past year. This represented the lowest valuation for Vuong in the last seven years.

Vuong personally owns more than 691 million VIC shares, with additional holdings through private companies such as taxi firm GSM, real estate management company VMI, and Vietnam Investment Group.

Alongside Vuong, the fortunes of Duong and Quang also declined. Both experienced a drop of $200 million in 2024. Quang’s case is particularly notable as he has repeatedly entered and exited the Forbes billionaire list due to the volatility of Masan’s stock (MSN).

Quang was first recognized as a billionaire in early 2019 with a fortune of $1.3 billion. In 2023, he re-entered the list early in the year but exited in October after MSN fell by more than 30% from its peak. His wealth also fluctuated significantly between November 2019 and October 2020, when he was not recognized as a billionaire by Forbes.

Meanwhile, the fortunes of Thao, Anh, and Long all increased in 2024. The biggest gain among them came from female billionaire Thao, who is also vice chairwoman of HDBank, whose wealth rose by $700 million to $2.9 billion. She now ranks 1,185th in the global billionaire rankings.

Thanks to the positive performance of Hoa Phat’s HPG and Techcombank’s TCB in 2024, the wealth of Long and Anh surged by $600 million and $300 million, respectively.