Foreign fund group Dragon Capital reduces ownership ratio at FPT Retail (FRT)

Foreign fund group Dragon Capital has just announced the sale of 90,000 FRT shares of FPT Digital Retail JSC - FPT Retail (FRT).

The transaction was made on July 7, 2023, and after this transaction, the ownership ratio of Dragon Capital fund group at FPT Retail decreased from 8.03% to only 7.96%. The fund that made the transaction to sell FRT shares was Norges Bank.

Dragon Capital Group reduces ownership ratio at FPT Retail FRT image 1 — Dragon Capital fund group sells FRT shares, reduces ownership ratio at FPT Retail (Photo TL)

Dragon Capital's sale of FPT Retail shares comes as the company has just recorded a loss from its core business in the first quarter of 2023. This is the first quarter in which FPT Retail has suffered a loss from its business activities in the past 3 years.

Specifically, in the first quarter of 2023, FPT Retail recorded net revenue of VND 7,752.9 billion, a slight decrease compared to the same period last year. Cost of goods sold did not fluctuate much, but financial revenue dropped sharply from VND 50.5 billion to only VND 16.5 billion.

Meanwhile, financial expenses increased from VND54.7 billion to VND86.4 billion, an increase of 58%. The majority of which was interest expense, accounting for VND85.4 billion. This means that every day, FPT Retail has to pay nearly VND1 billion in interest.

Selling expenses also increased and put great pressure on the company's revenue, from 732.4 billion to 913.2 billion VND. The corresponding increase rate was 24.7%. On the contrary, business management expenses were reduced to only 205.4 billion VND.

Revenue remained unchanged but expenses increased simultaneously, causing FPT Retail to record a slight loss of nearly 2 billion VND from business activities. In return, the company had other income of 5 billion VND, so the profit after tax at the end of the period still reached nearly 2.1 billion VND.

At the end of the first quarter of 2023, FPT Retail's total assets reached VND 9,440.5 billion. Of which, short-term assets accounted for VND 8,155.6 billion. Inventories accounted for a large proportion of total assets, about VND 6,303.2 billion, equivalent to 66.8% of total assets.

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