Vietnamese billionaires' fortune drops $2.4 bln

Total net worth of Vietnamese billionaires has plunged by $2.4 billion since Forbes’s ranking of the planet’s richest people in early April due to the local stock market's turbulence.

All seven Vietnamese representatives in Forbes’s list of U.S. dollar billionaires have experienced a slump in total assets, with their total wealth dropping to $18.8 billion as of June 18, according to the real-time billionaires list.

Given the VN-Index plummet of 17% since the end of March, steel maker Hoa Phat, listed on Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange (HoSE: HPG), had its stock value sink about 55.8%.

The drop margin has been enlarged following chairman Tran Dinh Long's statement about the steel industry's difficulties at the company's annual general meeting on May 24.

The move pulled Long’s fortune down by $1.2 billion, the biggest decline among Vietnamese U.S. dollar billionaires. He slipped to the fifth position in Vietnam and out of the top 1,000 wealthiest persons on earth, ranking 1477th, down 526 places from April.

Vietnam’s richest person Pham Nhat Vuong, chairman of Vingroup, recorded a decrease of $300 million, or 5%, from $6.2 billion in April.

CEO of Vietjet Air Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao and chairman of Techcombank Ho Hung Anh observed their fortunes dropping by $400 million and $200 million respectively.

Other billionaires, namely Masan Group chairman Group Nguyen Dang Quang, Nova Group chairman Bui Thanh Nhon, and Thaco Group chairman Tran Ba Duong and his family jointly recorded a decrease of $100 million in assets.

However, several top brokers have expressed their positive outlooks on the Vietnamese stock market in the coming time.

VNDirect Securities predicted that the national economy would recover faster in the next quarters, which would significantly support the local stock market. Vietnam's GDP is predicted to grow by 5.6% year-on-year in the second quarter of 2022, up 0.6% quarter-on-quarter. It also forecasts Vietnam's GDP of 7.1% in 2022.

Viet Dragon Securities believed that there is not much information powerful enough to disrupt the market in June, with slight improvement in market liquidity from May’s average.

However, the Vietnamese stock market still confronts numerous external macro issues, including tightened monetary policy and unexpected global inflation movements due to the Russia-Ukraine war’s influence on fuel and food prices, the broker noted in a report.

These factors are projected to weigh on domestic inflation, posing a significant challenge to the stock market's momentum, especially in the context of more cautious capital flow and the absence of positive news, according to Viet Dragon.

SSI Securities also attributed the market’s volatility to the indirect impact of China's zezo-Covid policy. The US and Vietnam's stock market has dropped nearly 14% since the beginning of the year, indicating that these issues have partially reflected in the stock price.

However, growth of pandemic-affected sectors is predicted to be positive year-on-year in the second half of 2022, with public investment disbursement likely to be accelerated. The 2% interest rate support package would be also a driving force if executed in a proper manner, according to SSI Reseach.