Hoa Phat chairman becomes Vietnam’s 2nd richest, after Vingroup’s Vuong

Tran Dinh Long, Chairman of Hoa Phat Group, whose net worth quickly expanded an additional $200 million in the past three days, has surpassed CEO of Vietjet Air Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao to become the second richest person in Vietnam, according to Forbes.

Long saw his asset climb to $3.4 billion and moved to the 892nd place in the entire real-time billionaires list announced by Forbes magazine on March 5.

Vietnam has six representatives in Forbes’s list of USD billionaires, with the total wealth expanding from $18.3 billion to $19 billion over a year.

The first position belonged to Pham Nhat Vuong, Chairman of Vingroup, with a fortune of $6.2 billion and ranked 422nd. Vingroup is Vietnam's largest listed firm by market cap. Its core businesses are electric cars, real estate development (residential complexes, resorts and retail space), technology research (cloud computing, AI, big data...), education and medical care.

Although CEO of Vietjet Air (VJC) Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao has fallen to the third place, she has seen her total assets climb to $3.1 billion, an increase of $200 million in just the past few days. Most of this addition comes from the great performance of VJC shares.

As her fortune crossed $3 billion, the businesswoman has succesfully entered the list of 1,000 richest people on the planet, ranking 987th, up 126 places compared to the beginning of the month.

Ho Hung Anh, Chairman of Techcombank, is the fourth richest in Vietnam and 1,212nd in the world, with total assets worth $2.6 billion, up $1 billion against last year.

The ranking of Vietnamese billionaires also witnessed a swap between those in the fifth and sixth places. In particular, Nguyen Dang Quang, Chairman of Masan Group, earned an additional $900 million, seeing his assets expand to $2.1 billion, surpassing Tran Ba Duong, Chairman of Thaco Group and his family, who had an unchanged net worth of $1.6 billion. Their positions in the Forbes’ Billionaire list are currently 1,453rd and 1860th respectively.

While Tran Dinh Long and other Vietnamese billionaires have seen a sharp rise or at least no change in their assets, the only with a decline in his fortune is Pham Nhat Vuong. Although the owner of Vingroup remained Vietnam’s richest person, his net worth is currently $6.2 billion, down $1.1 billion from the previous year.

In contrast to Vuong, an additional $1.2 billion over a year has brought Tran Dinh Long to the list of 1,000 richest people in the world for the first time. This figure also makes him the Vietnamese billionaire with the strongest net asset growth over a year.

According to Forbes, Long’s main source of fortune derived from his shares in Hoa Phat Group (HPG).

In recent days, the stock market has recorded a rapid increase in HPG shares. Specifically, the closing price of this stock on March 4 was $2.18 USD/unit, up 6.2% compared to March 1.

With a more than 35% stake in Hoa Phat Group, Long and his family members’ net worth experienced an increase of more than $180 million during this period.

With a market capitalization of $9.75 billion, those shares owned by Long’s family are now worth more than $3.4 billion.

In 2021, Hoa Phat Group recorded net revenue of nearly $6.57 billion, up 66% year-on-year. Profit after tax reached $1.51 billion or grew 15%.

Overall, despite the uptrend of these companies’ stock prices during the week, it is assumed that part of the improvements of Vietnamese billionaire’s places were likely attributed to the world “poorer” in the context of global financial markets encountering many fluctuations amid tensions between Russia and Ukraine, Forbes said.

In the first two months of the year, Hoa Phat Group’s construction steel sales reached 828,000 tonnes, a 2.2-fold increase year-on-year. Of this, 174,000 tonnes was shipped overseas, 2.6 times higher than the same period last year. Major export markets are Singapore, Hong Kong, Canada, Japan, South Korea and Cambodia.

The group’s complete construction steel products are expected to grow over 20 percent this year against 2021.

Hoa Phat Group’s three major business lines are steel, real estate (residential property and industrial parks) and agriculture.