Foreign shareholders turn VNG into tech unicorn

The participation of foreign shareholders has helped tech firm VNG become the first unicorn in Vietnam, with a valuation of $1 billion.

Founded in 2004 by Vietnamese businessman Le Hong Minh, 46 now, VNG is currently a leading technology services provider in Vietnam. It was officially valued at $1 billion in the World Startup Report in 2014 after 10 years of operation.

VNG will begin to trade its VNZ shares on the unlisted public company market UPCoM at the reference level of VND240,000 ($10.2), with a trading band of 40% on Thursday.

With 35.8 million shares registered for trading, the market capitalization of VNG is estimated at more than VND8,600 billion ($360 million). This figure is much lower than the valuation of $1 billion for a business to be considered a unicorn, which VNG achieved in 2014. Besides, the offering price is also lower than the level that this company previously offered to partners.

In early 2015, VNG issued nearly 300,000 shares to a strategic shareholder at the price of more than VND666,000 ($28.32) per share.

In January 2008, the company issued 50,000 shares to foreign investors, including 40,010 to Tenacious Bulldog Holdings Limited at VND121,693 per share; and 9,990 shares to GS Treasure Sarl at VND139,568 per share. As such, the valuation of VNG at that time reached about VND3-3.5 trillion ($218.7 million under the exchange rate in 2008).

VNG's 2008 annual report showed that Chinese technology giant Tencent had acquired a stake equal to 20.02% of interest in an online game provider in Asia. Coincidentally, also that year, former M&A director of Tencent - Johnny Shen or Johny Shen Hao - became the financial manager at VNG.

The audited 2011 consolidated financial statements of VNG also recorded Tencent Holdings Limited as a major shareholder. In addition, a number of Tencent's subsidiaries like Tencent Shenzhen, Tencent Mobile International, and Tencent Shanghai have been mentioned in VNG's latest financial statements.

After the offering of shares to foreign investors in 2008, most of VNG's subsequent capital-raising deals were done through the issuance of Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) shares. It conducted two private share placements to strategic shareholders in 2012 and 2015 at the price of VND40,403 and VND666,345 per share, respectively, equivalent to a valuation of up to VND21 trillion ($1.31 billion under the exchange rate in 2008). In addition, VNG also offered 1.69 million shares to the company's management board in 2013 at VND150,260 per share.

Through 16 times of capital increase, VNG's capitalization has reached more than VND358 billion ($15.23 million), with 49% of its stake held by foreign shareholders and over 31% by domestic ones. The remaining 20% are treasury shares.

According to its information disclosure, as of November 28, 2022, VNG had three major shareholders: VNG Limited, headquartered in the Cayman Islands, holding 49% of charter capital or 61.1% of outstanding shares; BigV Technology Corporation with a 4.6% stake and accounting for 5.7% of outstanding shares; and Le Hong Minh, chairman and CEO of VNG, who owns a 9.8% stake and 12.3% of outstanding shares.

Recently, VNG’s 2022 extraordinary general meeting of shareholders approved the offering of 7.1 million treasury shares to BigV Technology Corporation at the price of VND177,881 ($7.5) per share. If the deal is successful, BigV will increase its stake in the Vietnamese unicorn to 30.5% of charter capital.

In the first nine months of 2022, VNG achieved revenue of VND5.76 trillion ($232.75 million), up 1% over the same period. It suffered total losses before tax of VND764 billion ($30.85 million), mainly due to losses from affiliates and the ZaloPay owner. With these business results, VNG completed only 56% of its yearly revenue plan.

As of September 30, 2022, VNG had chartered capital of VND358 billion and total assets of VND9.2 trillion ($371.56 million).