Thuy is called ‘Shark Thuy’ as he was one of the ‘powerful’ investors of the TV Show ‘Shark Tank’. He owned the country’s largest English center chain – Apax English. However, the shark has faced accusations of owing money to bond holders and salaries to teachers. Many centers of the chain have shut down. 

The multi-million dollar deals

Thuy was famous among the business community, especially after he appeared as an investor on Shark Tank Vietnam for the first three seasons. Many investment deals were closed by the businessman with committed investment capital of multi billions of dollars.

In Season 1, in early 2018, Thuy caught attention from the public when pledging VND15 billion for a startup which was then facing difficulties – Soya Garden, a soybean shop chain. The investment capital was promised in exchange for 45 percent of shares of the startup.

Thuy made the deal when the other sharks of the programs kept quiet to the call for investment. The total revenue of the eight shops of the chain was modest, just VND300 million a month. By that time, the startup had been operating for 1.5 years, when the young founders were embarrassed when asked about the business performance and mid-term strategy. 

Later, Soya Garden’s capital increased from VND30 million to VND20 billion, and to VND100 billion just one year later. However, after three years of operation, Soya Garden, which once had 50 shops, almost disappeared from the market. A co-founder left Soya Garden. It is one of the failed business deals of Shark Thuy.

Thuy also committed to pump capital into a series of big deals, including a startup specializing in games 5D We Escape, which attracted youth; the startup Volunteer For Education; an app that allows film and videos shares, Umbala; a chain of coffee houses in association with English teaching, Talks Café 10% English; and a project on manufacturing multi-purpose wheelchairs for the disabled.

The total investment capital Thuy committed to invest in the projects was up to millions of dollars, but most of them could not bring any profits, especially during the two years of Covid-19.

Largest English center chain in Vietnam

The biggest success of Thuy is Apax English and EnglishNow chain.

For a long time, Apax English and EnglishNow were big earners of Apax Holdings (IBC), a subsidiary of Egroup owned by Thuy.

By the end of 2022, Thuy held 6.17 percent of IBC shares, while Egroup had 16.8 percent.

Apax Holdings reportedly held 66.36 percent of capital at Apax English/Apax Leaders. The network, in its golden days, had over 120 centers nationwide with the brandname Apax Leaders, located in 30 cities otr provinces and trained 120,000 learners.

Apax Holdings experienced a hot development period in pre-Covid-19 years. Its revenue reached VND1 trillion in 2018 and doubled in 2020.

Storms came after Covid-19, when teachers of Apax Leaders centers denounced Thuy for owing salaries to them, while students’ parents repeatedly asked Thuy to give them their money back.

In a dispatch to the HCM City Stock Exchange (HOSE) in November 2022, Thuy, after verifying the problems reported by local press, realized that these were the problems of Apax English, and that Apax English’s leaders had been joining forces with Apax Holdings to apply reasonable solutions.

Analysts say that when seeing great opportunities in the educational sector which was estimated to be worth billions of dollars, Shark Thuy focused on developing Apax Holdings, leading to overly hot development. 

However, as the pandemic broke out and lockdown was imposed, educational centers faced difficulties, including Apax. In 2022, IBC still reported revenue increase, but began taking net loss which has increased rapidly since then.

Egroup also could not pay bond debts.

When meeting VietNamNet reporters in late 2022, Thuy admitted Apax Englilsh’s overly hot development.

In addition to education, Thuy also injected money into real estate and has tasted failure as the real estate market has been frozen since 2022.

Manh Ha