Part 1: Phu Thai and Trung Nguyen

Two months ago, Japan's Sojitz reported that Ministops, run by Aeon Group, officially began cooperating with Sojitz in a plan to recover the Ministops chain in Vietnam. Did people then realize that Ministops quietly said goodbye to G7 Mart, belonging to Trung Nguyen Café, a major company in the coffee industry which tried to jump into the retail sector?

G7 Mart had joined hands with Ministops to run the convenience store in 2011. The two parties set up a joint venture with initial investment capital of over $10 million, to which G7 Mart contributed 75 percent of capital and Ministops 25 percent.

At that time, the owners announced they would develop 500 convenience stores within five years.

This was an ambitious plan in the eyes of experts, who noted that even Shop & Go which has been in Vietnam since 2005 and Circle K since 2008 did not dare set such a target.

However, the joint venture believed this was within reach, because G7 Mart had had 460 sale points by that time, while Ministops had powerful financial capability and retail experience. 

Besides, Ministops is in many countries including the Philippines, China and South Korea.

However, after four years of cooperation, Ministops could establish 17 shops only, or only 3.4 percent of the plan. 

Meanwhile, Ministops’ rivals, such as Circle K, FamilyMart, Shop&Go and B’s Mart all have been growing rapidly. 

By the end of June 2015, Shop&Go, the retailer from Singapore had 128 shops in Vietnam, Circle K (the US) had 113 shops, FamilyMart 65 and B’s Mart 97.

The disagreement in business strategy was the reason cited to explain the failure. G7 Mart only wanted to develop a convenience store chain to sell 100 percent of Vietnamese goods, while Ministops wanted to designate the manufacturers to supply goods.

Like Trung Nguyen, Phu Thai Group also was unsuccessful with its plan to develop a convenience store.

Phu Thai once cooperated with Japanese FamilyMart to set up Vina FamilyMart, in which Phu Thai held a 51 percent stake, while FamilyMart had 44 percent and Itochu 5 percent.

Phu Thai hoped it would be able to develop 300 FamilyMarts by 2015. However, it could not develop further after opening the 42nd shop at the end of 2012. In June 2013, Phu Thai had to sell its 51 percent stake to Thai Corporation International (TCI), a subsidiary of Thai Berli Jucker (BJC).

FamilyMart has not left the Vietnamese retail market as rumored, but it maintains strategic shops, and has been developing new shops.

NCDT