Secretive, not giving press interviews, with the firm view "It's best to do well, talk less", tycoon Ho Xuan Nang is not only 'mysterious' in the media but he is also known as a "hidden billionaire" on the stock market.
Artificial stone giant expands into technology, training
Last week, Mr. Ho Xuan Nang's A&A Green Phoenix Group Joint Stock Company (Phenikaa Group) announced the successful issuance of a bond lot worth VND320 billion, with a term of 7 years and a fixed interest rate of 8.2%/year. At the end of 2023, Phenikaa also raised VND900 billion in bonds, with an interest rate of about 6%.
This interest rate is quite low compared to the 12-15% that many large corporations have issued recently, in the context of the bond market struggling after the cases of Van Thinh Phat, Tan Hoang Minh, FLC...
Phenikaa is a multi-industry corporation with dozens of member units, chaired by Mr. Ho Xuan Nang, with equity capital of more than VND 9,000 billion. Phenikaa had a profit after tax of nearly VND 514 billion in the first half of 2024 (up 31% over the same period). In 2022 and 2023, the profit after tax reached VND 1,000 billion and VND 611 billion, respectively.
The core business segment is quartz-based artificial stone through Vicostone JSC (VCS), with revenue of 4,400-7,100 billion VND/year in recent years. Illustrative photo
The core business is quartz-based artificial stone through Vicostone JSC (VCS), with revenue of 4,400-7,100 billion VND/year in recent years. Phenikaa holds more than 84% of Vicostone shares. Vicostone is a big name in the international market with product positioning in the high-end segment. The main markets are the US and Canada. Domestically, Vicostone ranks No. 1 in Vietnam in terms of market share.
In addition, Phenikaa also focuses on education and training and technology with self-driving car models.
Currently, many investors are waiting for the self-driving car manufacturing startup of Phenikaa X (a company in the Phenikaa ecosystem) after Mr. Ho Xuan Nang revealed it at Vicostone's 2024 Shareholders' Meeting.
Mr. Ho Xuan Nang said that the self-driving car manufacturing enterprise will raise capital and issue shares for the first time to the public (IPO) with a very high valuation. A noteworthy point is that the technology is developed by the units within the group, including universities, research institutes and factories in the Phenikaa ecosystem. This startup is the first “Made in Vietnam” self-driving car manufacturing project, announced in 2021.
At the end of March 2021, Phenikaa established Phenikaa X and officially introduced the first "Made in Vietnam" level 4 smart autonomous vehicle in Vietnam at the International Conference "Autonomous Technology and Smart Transportation".
Phenikaa's level 4 autonomous electric vehicle (in the world's 5-level scale) is advertised to possess smart features, using artificial intelligence technology and most of the world's advanced technologies such as 2D/3D maps, Lidar sensors, SLAM, machine learning, deep learning...
Mr. Ho Xuan Nang. Photo: Phenikaa
Mr. Ho Xuan Nang said that Phenikaa has many other technological products, developed from the combination of research between universities (Phenikaa University) and research institutes and factories of the group. Every year, Vicostone as well as the parent group Phenikaa spend 2-3% of total revenue to invest in research and development of new technology and products.
How rich is the tycoon from Nam Dinh?
In the stock market, Mr. Ho Xuan Nang is famous with the nickname "Jewish Nang" after the classic reverse acquisition deal at the end of 2014. At that time, Mr. Ho Xuan Nang was the vice chairman and general director of Vicostone (a subsidiary) and held 90% of the charter capital of the parent company Phenikaa, becoming the most powerful person at Phenikaa and Vicostone.
After this deal, Vicostone completely transformed. Since 2017, the company's profit scale has exceeded 1,000 billion VND and reached more than 1,770 billion VND in 2021. With huge profits of around a thousand billion VND/year from Vicostone, Phenikaa has expanded into many new fields, most recently real estate.
VCS shares reached a peak of nearly VND140,000/share (adjusted price) in April 2018. At that peak, Vicostone's capitalization reached more than VND22,000 billion (equivalent to nearly USD1 billion). Mr. Ho Xuan Nang directly and indirectly owned about 120 million VCS shares, equivalent to about VND17,000 billion (about USD750 million).
Currently, VCS shares have decreased significantly compared to their peak, Mr. Ho Xuan Nang's assets are only nearly 8,000 billion VND, ranking 14th in the list of richest people on the stock market.
However, Mr. Nang's assets are currently only calculated based on the number of Vicostone shares that this businessman from Nam Dinh holds.
Meanwhile, the Phenikaa ecosystem is considered to be larger in scale, with the education sector and startup Phenikaa X…
After a decade in the hands of Mr. Ho Xuan Nang, the Phenikaa ecosystem also includes Phenikaa University (formerly Thanh Tay University), Phenikaa Education Investment JSC, Phenikaa Testing and Certification JSC, Phenikaa Electronics JSC, Phenikaa Research & Technology Institute, Phenikaa-X JSC,...
Not only launching the "Made in Vietnam" level 4 smart autonomous vehicle, Phenikaa-X has also expanded into many other fields such as drones, smart city solutions... Phenikaa-X has researched and developed the first 100% autonomous robot solution in Vietnam at the Samsung Electronics factory (named AMR Pallet Mover), capable of carrying a load of up to 1,000kg, without the need for a human operator, and can fully automatically find its way, pick up and deliver goods. Recently, Phenikaa-X has also deployed autonomous robots in the medical field at hospitals.
Mr. Ho Xuan Nang's ambition in the field of higher education is very large, with the scale of training continuously expanding. Phenikaa University currently has 55 training majors/programs after 17 years of establishment, enrolling more than 10,000 students/year, along with 3 research institutes.
Phenikaa also operates in the real estate business, with the Endless Skyline West Lake office, hotel and luxury apartment complex project (Tay Ho district, Hanoi). The project is built and developed by Nam Hung Joint Stock Company, a member of Phenikaa. The project scale is 3,626.8m2, including 150 commercial apartments, 56 apartments for rent and 150 hotel rooms.
The project will complete its foundation by the end of 2023 and open for sale in early 2024. The selling price is up to hundreds of millions of VND/m2, which can help Phenikaa's profits increase sharply.
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