Despite his successes, recent challenges have surfaced as VNG faces scrutiny and regulatory issues.

Le Hong Minh, a notable figure in Vietnam's tech industry, founded VNG (formerly Vinagame) and served as its CEO for nearly two decades. VNG is renowned for its flagship products, including the social network Zalo, ZaloPay, and popular games such as Vo Lam Truyen Ky.

In an article titled "I play and make online games," wrote in late 2006, Minh reflected on his memorable gaming career and the bold decisions that led him to start developing online games in 2004 with Vinagame, eventually establishing the tech giant VNG.

On the evening of September 6, 2024, VNG Corporation unexpectedly announced the appointment of Kelly Wong, Vice President of VNG, as Acting CEO. This move aims to ensure the continued stability and efficiency of VNG's operations. The board of directors will work closely with Wong in his new role.

The announcement did not mention Le Hong Minh, the founder and long-time CEO of VNG, nor did it address his current or future roles.

Le Hong Minh's leadership and VNG's growth

Le Hong Minh founded VNG in 2004, initially known as Vinagame, with a capital of 15 billion VND. Over the years, VNG's capital increased to hundreds of billions of VND. After two decades, VNG has become Vietnam's first tech unicorn, once valued at over 2 billion USD.

VNG's stock, listed on Upcom since early 2023, saw a surge to over 1.56 million VND per share in February 2023 but has since adjusted to 480,000 VND per share. The company's peak market capitalization was 2.3 billion USD, now standing at over 13 trillion VND ($524.1 million).

In his 2006 article, Le Hong Minh described his journey from gaming enthusiast to tech pioneer, despite facing significant pressures and public skepticism about online gaming. Gaming became the foundation for his establishment of VNG, driven by the mission to "use the internet to change the lives of Vietnamese people."

With 20 years of development, VNG has grown into a global conglomerate with over 4,000 employees from numerous countries. Before founding VNG, Minh (born 1977) graduated in finance and banking from Monash University, Australia, and worked at PWC and VinaCapital.

An avid gamer since university, Minh opened a gaming center with additional business services. Eventually, he left VinaCapital to start VinaGame, bringing major game titles to Vietnam, including "Vo Lam Truyen Ky" in 2004.

In late 2002, Minh led the Vietnamese team to the World Cyber Games, an important event for this gamer, despite a challenging outcome. By November 2004, VinaGame signed a contract to release "Vo Lam Truyen Ky" with KingSoft, despite being a new company with limited resources. Within six months, the game amassed 1 million members, bringing significant profit and fame to VinaGame.

Over the next two years, VinaGame grew to become the largest online game company in Vietnam, operating three games with nearly 1,000 servers and hundreds of thousands of users. The company continued to launch popular games like Gunny, PUBG, and League of Legends.

Leveraging the success of these games, VinaGame (renamed VNG in 2009) expanded into social networks, e-commerce, digital content, and electronic payments, becoming Vietnam's first tech unicorn valued at over 1 billion USD in 2014. By 2019, Singapore's Temasek valued VNG at 2.2 billion USD.

Challenges and controversies

Despite its success in gaming and the Zalo network, VNG has faced challenges with various business projects and compliance issues as a public company.

In early August 2024, the State Securities Commission fined VNG 157.5 million VND for violations related to inadequate and incomplete information disclosure. Specifically, VNG failed to disclose a board resolution from September 2022 about using VNG assets to secure debts for BigV Technology JSC, a major shareholder with legal representation by Le Hong Minh.

VNG also failed to report timely financial statements and annual reports for 2023 and did not fully disclose information regarding its CitiBank accounts used to secure loans for BigV.

According to the mid-2024 financial report, VNG's investments in subsidiaries and affiliates, including a 510 billion VND loss in Tiki Global, have been struggling. Additionally, VNG invested approximately 1,777 billion VND into Zion JSC (owner of ZaloPay) in the first half of 2024, increasing its stake to nearly 100%.

Regarding the abrupt withdrawal of its IPO filing in the U.S., Minh explained to Tech in Asia that investors were not yet ready for Asian tech IPOs. Despite engaging with over 120 global investors in the past year, many are still waiting and observing.

Tech in Asia also noted that VNG's growth has slowed recently, with fintech operations becoming a significant barrier to profit growth.

Manh Ha