SK acquires 16.3% stake in Vietnamese retailer for $410 million

SK Group has acquired 16.3 percent stake of Vietnam’s largest retail chain VinCommerce. Experts assess that SK’s strategic investment of founding a corporation for investments in Southeast Asia in 2018 started to bring results.

The group announced Tuesday that it signed a contract to purchase 16.3 percent of VinCommerce shares at 410 million dollars (about 460 billion won) from Masan Group. VinCommerce is the top retail chain in Vietnam that operates more than 2,300 supermarkets (VinMart) and convenient stores (VinMart+). 　

Convenient stores and supermarkets that are called “modern retail markets” in Vietnam are rapidly growing by more than 25 percent per year. VinCommerce owns some 50 percent of the market share. The retail giant’s sales have grown by some 30 percent from 1.1 billion dollars (about 1.232 trillion won) in 2019 to 1.4 billion dollars last year, which is projected to grow to 1.8 billion dollars (about 2.016 trillion won) this year. SK expects the value of their shares to grow further.


will@donga.com