devonplay
26 Apr 2019
Anyone still in this/watching it? This one has caught my eye. Like much of the site, not much commentary on it. DL
Hydrogen_Economy
24 Aug 2018
Vietnam ITs looking stronger VEIL and VOF are following the VNI steadily upwards. VOF is still at 22% discount (above average) and VEIL at 15% discount. VN economy remains strong, the Dong is down slightly, much less than other EM currencies. Trade and FDI providing good support to the VN economy, the average wages at around 30% of China make VN location of choice for many multinationals including the likes of Samsung and Intel and a major source of apparel and footware driving up employment. The successor to TPP CPTTP will reduce many tariffs with regional trading partners (many of which are high on imported goods like electronics and cars) which will support growth. There are risks to EM as a whole takes a hit due to strong dollar or additional trade issues, but VN looks like the pick of the bunch. H2
Hydrogen_Economy
09 Aug 2018
VOF egg deal off Bit surprising for Vinacapital with long experience in country to be making such an omelette of this one. 32m would imply around 3% of VOF Mkt cap but I don’t see in the Jun top 10 holdings despite VN News statement about investing in Feb, hopefully they didn’t get round to shelling out. H2 Viet Nam News HÀ NỘI — VinaCapital has decided to stop investing in the Ba Huân Joint Stock Company and the two parties are negotiating to terminate this deal, the fund management firm announced on August 8. This announcement came two days after Ba Huân JSC told the media that VinaCapital wanted to take control of the company and appropriate the Ba Huân brand. In February this year, VinaCapital Vietnam Opportunity Fund (VOF), the flagship fund of VinaCapital, invested US$32.5 million in Ba Huân, which supplies fresh products and is well-known for its safe eggs in the southern region. “When deciding to invest in Ba Huân JSC, we believed Ba Huân is a good business with strong development potential, and we would like to cooperate with Ba Huân to lift the company to a higher stage of development,†VinaCapital said in a media release on August 8. “However, due to some misunderstandings between the two parties, we have decided to stop investment in Ba Huân and are discussing with the company to terminate this deal in the spirit of compliance with law and mutual benefits,†it said. VinaCapital declined to disclose details of the signed contracts between the two parties due to privacy issues, but declared that it “has no intention of taking control or taking over Ba Huân and this is not part of the group’s business strategyâ€. “Market practice†VinaCapital has confirmed that the terms signed by the two parties were in accordance with market practices and similar to other investments made by the fund in the past and fully complied with Vietnamese law. There were terms that protect the interests of investors but VinaCapital said they were consistent with market practices and were only applied when the business did not achieve the results projected by the company’s management board. VinaCapital added that its investment valued the company higher than its market price based on price/earnings (P/E) ratio. The fund also rejected Ba Huân’s claim that there were differences between English and Vietnamese contracts. The fund said Ba Huân had received the terms sheet in English and the Vietnamese translation for comparison, reviewing all main terms in the contracts before signing this memorandum of understanding (MoU) in October 2017. Ba Huân had over six months since the time of starting negotiations, drafting contracts and signing the MoU as well as formal contracts. The company sought advice from professional consultants so they fully understood its obligations, VinaCapital said. — VNS Read more at [link]
Ripley94
28 Jul 2018
VOF losing its lustre? VOF …. XXXX Similar to VEIL … Share Maiden likes it he asked Marksman if he was still in that one. ( VEIL ).
wildbuy
01 May 2018
Re: VOF losing its lustre? VOF got a nudge this week with a recommendation in MoneyWeek magazine. As a long term holding, Vietnam looks to have quite a list of positives, such as trading below NAV, young demographic and liberalising government. I seem to recall that VOF and VEIL both had the same investments as their core holding.
delyss
01 May 2018
Re: VOF losing its lustre? McHattie's Investment Trust Newsletter in February, on the choice for an ISA and considering the Vietnam ITs, said ' . . . In performance terms, VEIL has been the clear winner over the last year, delivering a NAV total return of 49% against 29% for VOF and 23% for VNH . . . VEIL shares trade on a 13% discount . . . similar to VNH and slightly narrower than VOF, but we would say that gap is more than justified by the historic performance differential. VOF has a broader mandate that allows the managers to allocate more to unquoted investments and property . . . ' Unquoted investments may make NAV changes more lumpy when they are realised (or revalued), I suppose.
leftback
23 Apr 2018
VOF losing its lustre? VOF seems to be loosing its shine a little under-performing against both the VHindex and also VEIL. Does anyone have any views on whether this can be mitigated by a more secure portfolio?
Hydrogen Economy
20 Mar 2018
VN "25% chance of EM Status by 2021" I tend to agree that this will take time to come about, but I don't think that this is a big negative, inclusion in the watchlist, indicated below as 2019 will increase interest and give time for foreign interest to build to eventual MSCI EM inclusion, by which time much of the positioning may have already happened. In any case VN looks like one of the best markets to be in for some time to come.H2as the two step process I think the run-up to EM Read more at [link] NỘI — Việt Nam’s securities market has a 25 per cent chance of being upgraded to the “emerging market” status from its current “frontier market” level by 2021, according to Võ Trí Thành, senior economist at the Central Institute for Economic Management (CIEM).The market status levels are regulated by Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI), the US independent provider of research-driven insights and tools for institutional investors. A review of any particular stock market and its reclassification carried out by MSCI would increase the attractiveness of that market to global investors.However, Thành said there were three factors that would make it difficult for Việt Nam to get upgraded by 2021 as expected by market analysts, investors and regulators.“The challenges that Việt Nam has encountered so far are information disclosure or corporate and market transparency, openness to foreign investors and capital, and opening the capital and financial market to the private sector,” he said.While information disclosure is quite costly for both market regulators and traded firms, the two others would require the Government and its agencies to make stronger efforts to make trading standards more accessible for foreign investors, according to Thành.Information disclosure has remained an obstacle for foreign investors if they want to make investment in Vietnamese companies as many companies have hesitated to make their business more transparent for highly-costly interpretation of financial and corporate reports.In addition, foreign investors are allowed to own up to 100 per cent of a Vietnamese company if that firm does not operate in the sectors involved in national security and safety such as banking, property and transportation.In such cases, foreign investors can have a maximum of 49 per cent ownership in the business. For commercial banks, the foreign ownership is limited at 30 per cent.Thành delivered his cautious outlook for the Vietnamese securities market at a seminar held on Wednesday by the US Embassy’s American Centre and the Vietnam Executive MBA Programme in Hà Nội of the University of Hawai’i (VEMBA Programme).Cấn Văn Lực, chief economist at the Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Investment and Development of Việt Nam (BIDV), said "even if Việt Nam is determined to get approval from MSCI on promoting the status of its securities market, it will be quite challenging".He said Việt Nam would have to be admitted onto MSCI’s watchlist for a market reclassification, which is expected to occur in 2019. Then it would take the Vietnamese securities market at least two more years to become an emerging market as regulated by MSCI.“An upgrade of the Vietnamese securities market’s status will attract more foreign capital, encourage local firms to make their business more transparent and motivate market regulators to standardise the market’s trading regulations,” he said."It also would prove that the Vietnamese securities market is among the most attractive in the world and encourage the Government to improve the economy’s investment and business conditions," Lực said.Positive 2018 aheadViệt Nam’s economy in general and its securities market in particular are showing positive signs and higher achievements are reachable in 2018.Chi
casabanker
06 Feb 2018
Re: NAV and sp drop. Hello H2,Yes VOF is risky but over this last week many defensive stocks that I hold have fallen more than VOF. It's a weird financial world. One risk that is not apparent currently is if there is a sudden collapse of the markets, and interest rates rise in the US, foreign investment flows back to perceived safe havens such as the dollar and gold. However, VOF is a long term play and providing the Vietnamese government continues on its current economic strategy, Vietnam will qualify to emerging market status and will attract more foreign investment. VOF will be a beneficiary.Casa.
Hydrogen Economy
06 Feb 2018
Re: NAV and sp drop. CasabankerI also added a few at 339, not so many as I want to leave room to add more here and VEIL if they slip further. The big dip followed by some recovery looks like a bit of panic creeping in, but I guess the 4+% drop in S&P etc will drag further on the VN index today. My holding here is for the long term. Vietnam development and market is driven by a mix of construction, infrastructure investment and exports, with tremendous output of products like textiles and furniture. GDP growth was reported as 6.8% in 2017 and similar forecast for 2018. Vietnam is classified as an MSCI Frontier market, which limits the number of overseas funds which currently invest. Re-classified as Developing Market has been on the cards for a while (requires some changes in regulation such as foreign ownership limits which are being relaxed) and could lead to a significant funds inflow.Plenty of risks, but then many "low risk" UK stocks have taken a hammering of late!H2
casabanker
05 Feb 2018
NAV and sp drop. The NAV has fallen about 3% since the last report on 29th of Jan but the sp fell over 7% earlier today so I have bought some more shares in VOF for 337p. Vietnam and Japan are the hot areas for investors atm according analyst and media reports.Casa.
II Editor
29 Jan 2018
NEW ARTICLE: Why I'm investing in Vietnam - and the right way to do it ""How stupid can you get?" was a question teachers often used to ask me. "How stupid do you want?" was always my reply.Over the last few years I have written articles about the attraction of Vietnam as an investment destination. Before proceeding ..."[link]
casabanker
07 Jan 2018
Re: VOF and VEIL Rise and outlook I made a small speculative buy into VOF about a couple of years ago. A Communist State and regarded as a frontier market made me feel a little nervous. At first the share price fell back a little and was slow to move up. Once it did start to move up it was slow and steady and has been like that ever since. I have doubled my holding over 12 months ago and I now wish I had bought more, especially now that a dividend is being paid. I am contemplating adding some more this year as the frontier market could well be changed to emerging market that will allow a number of funds to invest here. If that occurs, the sp should see further increases.Casa.
The Dutchman
04 Jan 2018
Re: VOF and VEIL Rise and outlook Good post H2. I think this is now my 3rd or 4th largest IT holding. I initially followed a from Merryn writing in the Saturday FT - those were the days when I could order the Saturday FT at work for 'research purposes' most of it went into bin on the train on the way home on Monday! I tend to add to anything once it goes up by 5-10% so not surprising that the better performing shares have a large place in my portfolio, albeit that I haven't had the benefit of all the rise on all my holding. I will look at VEIL as you suggest. In the meantime I'm off to Vietnam next month so will get some impression, even as a tourist, and see how it compares with Thailand, Sri Lanka and Taiwan. - Strange isn't it how some of these places have "Socialist Republic" hard wired into their name, when they seem to be embracing capitalism right left and centre!
Hydrogen Economy
04 Jan 2018
VOF and VEIL Rise and outlook VOF had a great 2017 continuing a steady uptrend but since mid December has really taken off. VEIL had an even more impressive 2017, there is a fair bit of overlap in the portfolio and little to justify the performance difference which encouraged me to add to my VOF holdings over last couple of months.Vietnam is certainly growing strongly, driven by real estate and continued foreign investment in manufacturing plants. It is not all low tech stuff, Samsung have very large telephone plants, Intel have been making chips in Vietnam for many years. The big worries are bank lending and corruption. There have been big moves on both these issues with bank debt having been placed into VAMC 'bad bank'. Many of these non-performing loans are now being re-bought by the original lender as the borrower positions and outlook improves. Many developments which were on put on-hold a few years ago when the money dried up (often part built) are now being completed.On corruption, there have been a number of former directors of state owned businesses arrested and imprisoned (or worse in extreme cases), including a senior member of the politburo only the second in history to be removed from that position and the first to be arrested. This is encouraging but only part of the story as corruption is by no means eliminated and the activities of the people targeted were so egregious that it caused embarrassment to the Government. The Country is stable, the Government maintains tight control without stifling entrepreneurship. The population is young, growing, relatively well educated and very motivated. The currency has been kept fairly closely pegged to the USD apart from a couple of minor devaluations (3% ish). 2018 GDP is forecast to rise around 6.7% (with the usual caveats for communist Govt stats).Both VOF and VEIL underperformed the VN Index, but that has been inflated by some highly dubious floatations of late with the public piling in to buy stock driving prices to bubble proportions, mainly because the main shareholder floating the business is one of the most famous rich Vietnamese, but the business is generating little return. VOF and VEIL have fortunately avoided such dubious investments. There have been many good IPOs in state owned businesses which are being progressively transferred into joint stock status and private companies like Vietjet. (Vietjet is held by VOF and VEIL, it has a terrific growth record with great reputation for customer service and innovation). The owner /CEO is a real celebrity and a $ billionaire. It is noticable that many of the most successful businesses in Vietnam are run by women, including Vinamilk (Vietnam Dairy Products JSC) which also has a tremendous record of growth and innovation, it is the biggest holdings in both VOF and VEIL. VEIL is around 15% discount to NAV, VOF 17% although NAV can be somewhat subjective for non listed assets.I will tempted to buy some VEIL and to add to VOF, but price currently looks a bit frothy so may wait for any dip.DYOR etc, Good luck for 2018, which is, oh dear it's the year of the dog. H2
