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MARKET OVERVIEW

The Vietnamese market has been a dynamic M&A environment. We have also seen that inbound M&A activity is increasing in both deal volumes and deal values faster than domestic M&A. According to public data, by dollar value, inbound M&A occupied more than 75% of total deal value in 2017 and the first half of 2018. Inbound megadeals explain this shift in the balance, for example the investment by the Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC in Vinhomes alone was $1.3 billion, while Warburg Pincus’s investment in Techcombank was $370 million. Real estate and financial services M&A activity has been most prominent in 2018.

In the largest promotion in the firm’s history, VILAF is pleased to announce the naming of 4 counsels as new partners and 1 senior associate as new counsel effective 1 January 2019.  VILAF has become the business law firm with the largest number of partners in Vietnam and has expertise knowledge and experiences in a wide variety of legal areas.

The new partners come from both Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi offices and have been practising law with VILAF for around 10 years. 

Project financing in Vietnam has thus far focused on the energy and infrastructure sectors. Major power projects have generally been implemented on a Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) basis, as the BOT legal scheme in Vietnam is more developed than other forms of investment, such as Build-Transfer-Operate (BTO) or Build-Transfer (BT), etc.

On August 8, 2018, at GEM Convention Center in Ho Chi Minh City, the 10th Vietnam M&A Forum honored the best M&A deals and advisory firms for 2018 and for the decade of 2009-2018.  VILAF brought home the 2018 M&A Law Firm of the Year Award and the M&A Law Firm of the Decade Award and was the sole law firm winning both awards at the Forum and the sole domestic law firm winning an award.

VILAF advised Vina SCG Chemicals Co., Ltd. (“VSCG”), its wholly-owned subsidiary of Siam Cement Group, in a sequence of transactions to buy out 25% and 29% of the equity stakes in Long Son Petrochemicals Company Limited (“LSP”) from Qatar Petroleum and PetroVietnam respectively.  The chain of transactions was completed in June 2018.