Vinfast SUVs being loaded onto the Silver Queen—a Panamanian charter ship—in Vietnam’s northern port … [+]
Vingroup and its billionaire founder Pham Nhat Vuong—Vietnam’s richest person—are injecting an additional $2.5 billion in fresh capital into VinFast to help accelerate the electric vehicle maker’s expansion across North America and Europe.
Vuong will inject $1 billion of his personal wealth into VinFast within the next year, Vingroup said in a statement. The conglomerate will separately provide the car manufacturer $500 million, while making available another $1 billion loan in the next five years.
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“The growth potential of VinFast has been demonstrated in the past five years,” Nguyen Viet Quang, CEO of Vingroup, said in the statement. “This is a pivotal period for VinFast to accelerate towards a solid competitive position in the world’s electric vehicle market.”
The fresh capital injections come as VinFast prepares to launch its initial public offering in the U.S. later this year. The company may raise at least $1 billion from the IPO, according to a Bloomberg News report in January.
VinFast, which plans to build a factory in North Carolina, started shipping its vehicles to the U.S. in November to directly challenge Tesla in its home market. Shipments to Canada and Europe are expected later this year.
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Besides car manufacturing, VinFast’s controlling shareholder Vuong has interests in real estate, retail, consumer electronics and healthcare through Vingroup, Vietnam’s largest conglomerate by market value. He is the country’s richest person with a net worth of $4.2 billion, according to the Forbes real-time ranking of billionaires.