Foreign eyes light up at new M&A deals
03-05-2013
Le Minh Dung, director of CBRE Vietnam, said the merger and acquisition (M&A) trend had been moved back to foreign hunters, after the domination of domestic buyers in 2012.
“The M&A trend has been clearly different in the first three months of this year, compared to last year, when domestic buyers dominated the market,” Dung said.
The market downturn has revealed many developers facing a shortage of investment capital and can not finish their projects, while the deadline to handover houses to customers had passed.
Stephen Wyatt, general manager of Knight Frank, said the company was experiencing high volumes of enquiries from international investors looking to enter Vietnam.
“We are certain 2013 will see an increased number of M&A activities compared to 2012. Many foreign investors are looking at Vietnam, as they believe the property market is reaching the bottom, so professional investors can sense an opportunity to buy distressed assets,” Wyatt said.
“Despite market difficulties in recent times, many foreign investors still believe there is a huge upside when investing in Vietnam, whilst we still believe there is some further pain to come in the property market. The clever investors are sensing now is the time to look for good opportunities and we expect 2013 will be a year when foreign investment and M&A activities reverses the trend of the previous years and starts to show an improvement,” he added.
Lotte Hotels & Resort has just finished a deal to buy a controlling stake in the Legend Hotel in Ho Chi Minh City.
Gemadept Tower, an asset from Gemadept, was said to be sold at the price of more than $45 million to a Korean company. There has also been rumours that a big hotel and shopping complex of a local company in the downtown Ho Chi Minh City was sold to a foreign investor for around $400 million.
Phan Xuan Can, chairman of the Sohovietnam, said many transactions would soon be publicised because all investors were listed companies that needed to declare information.
Sohovietnam has recently helped Gemadept sell its office building at 108 Lo Duc street of Hanoi for more than VND50 billion ($2.3 million).
Sohovietnam is currently selling an office building worth $80 million in Hanoi and another 22-storey office and trading centre worth VND700 billion ($33 million) in Ho Chi Minh City.
Can said many investors were pressured with bank loans and forced to cut prices to offload properties.
Blue chip investors are also looking to offload sites. The Song Da Industrial Parks and Urban Development Joint Stock Company (Sudico) has sold its stake in the Cactus Cam Ranh Resort & Spa.
Vinaconex-Hoang Thanh sold its stake in the Park City project in Hanoi to Malaysiam partner Perdana City, bringing this project into a 100 per cent, foreign-owned project.
In the An Khanh Joint Venture, Vinaconex was also negotiating to sell its stakes to Sovico, another domestic conglomerate. According to Dung, operating projects were most hunted, while golden land plots were less preferred.
http://vir.com.vn/news/en/property/foreign-eyes-light-up-at-new-m_a-deals.html
