VietNamNet Bridge – “I like sipping my happiness quietly by myself,” has
become the well-known words of Pham Nhat Vuong, the only Vietnamese businessman
named in the Forbes’ list of the world’s billionaires. “Silence is golden”
proves to be a suitable saying when talking about Vuong.
First Vietnamese billionaire on Forbes list
Pham Nhat Vuong still has entered the Forbes’ list of the world’s billionaires
with the total asset of $1.5 billion, even though the Vietnamese real estate
market keeps frozen, thus making the assets of many other real estate developers
“evaporate.”
Mr Pham Nhat Vuong
The majority of the Vuong’s assets of $1.5 billion come from the 53 percent of
the stakes being held by Vuong in Vingroup, a real estate group.
2012 was a tough year for real estate developers, when a lot of projects were
unimplemented due to the lack of capital, a lot of finished products left unsold
due to the weak demand.
However, the audited finance report of Vingroup, whose biggest source of income
was from real estate projects, still showed satisfactory business results. It
got the record turnover of VND7,904 billion, a sharp increase of 242 percent in
comparison with 2011.
And the great success of Vingroup was one of the reasons that put Vuong into the
list of the world’s billionaires.
A lot of questions have been raised after the Forbes released the list of the
world’s billionaires with the name “Pham Nhat Vuong”. What trade secret Vuong
applied to “swim against the market current to make profit in the context of the
gloomy market? Is the real estate market really so miserable for real estate
developers, and is it true that the developers need to be rescued?
In late January 2013, an online newspaper published a report by the Ministry of
Construction about the business performance of construction and real estate
enterprises under the ministry in 2012.
The report showed that by December 31, 2012, Vietnam had had 52,746 operational
construction enterprises (the figure was 42,197 in 2011). 15,925 enterprises
registered their business in 2012, an increase of 22 percent over 2011, while
1,103 real estate firms were newly set up, down by 3.3 percent over 2011.
However, the report showed that most construction businesses still made profit
(42,197 businesses, or 80 percent of the total). Meanwhile, 15,926 businesses
reported loss.
The information was then corrected by the Ministry of Construction–Do Duc Duy,
who denied the fact that 80 percent of real estate firms made profit in 2012. He
also said that 9,451 out of the 48,753 businesses in 2010 took loss (19.4
percent). Meanwhile, the figures were 14,998/48,733 (30.8 percent) in 2011 and
17,000/55,870 (30.4 percent) in 2012.
Duy also said that the finance reports which showed the figures were not the
audited ones; therefore, they do not truly reflect the actual situation of the
enterprises in the construction sector.
Nevertheless, Prof Dang Hung Vo, former Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and
the Environment, frankly said that real estate firms still can make profit.
“Real estate firms now cannot make fat profits as they did in the past. But they
don’t take loss. They just complain to claim for preferences,” Vo said.
The story about Vuong published on Forbes said that the Vincom Center A opening
ceremony was very imposing, but the 44-year-old billionaire did not drink any
glass of champagne, or cut the opening ribbon and deliver speech. He just kept
quiet at the ceremony.
DDDN