Thaco Agri, an agriculture company, and subsidiary of Thaco Group, initially known as an automobile manufacturer, has reported profits for 2023 of VND42 billion, an encouraging achievement if noting that it took a loss of VND869 billion in 2022 and VND514 billion in 2021.

The news was a surprise, because the financial report of Jardine Cycle & Carriage (JCC), a shareholder of Thaco, holding 26.6 percent of Thaco’s shares, showed that the contribution by Thaco’s agricultural production to JCC was still a negative number.

Thaco Agri’s financial report showed that its stockholder equity by the end of 2023 had increased by 26 percent compared with earlier that year, reaching VND14.3 trillion. Accounts payable had increased to VND37.2 trillion, total assets reached VND51.5 trillion (more than $2 billion), and bond value was VND2.86 trillion.

Thaco Agri was established in 2019, specializing in agricultural production, after Thaco, a large automobile manufacturer, pumped money into Hoang Anh Gia Lai Agrico (HNG) (which was then owned by Doan Nguyen Duc) and turned it into Thaco Agri.

The company now has 84,000 hectares of agricultural land in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.

In Laos, Thaco Agri owns 27,000 hectares of land for fruit cultivation and cow farming. In Cambodia, the company owned by billionaire Tran Ba Duong has 44,000 hectares of cultivated land. And in Vietnam, the figure is 9,000 hectares.

Some years ago, after taking over Boss Duc’s agriculture division, Thaco faced difficulties. 

Nevertheless, Thaco still vowed to develop an agriculture empire thanks to the large land bank it had inherited from HAGL Agrico. Planting bananas and farming cows was the priority of the company. 

Duong had hoped that his company could export $1 billion worth of bananas and Cambodia would become one of the largest banana export centers.

Thaco Agri plans to obtain revenue of VND6.6 trillion in 2024.

Prior to that, in April 2024, Thaco announced its 2023 financial situation with decreased profits. The group made a post-tax profit of VND2.734 trillion, a sharp fall from the VND7.42 trillion it had gained the year before.

As of the end of 2023, Thaco’s stockholder equity had reached VND52.4 trillion ($2.1 billion) and its assets VND170.7 trillion.

Thaco’s assets increased sharply after it decided to expand its business into other non-automobile business fields.

In the last decade, Thaco made heavy investments in real estate, retail, logistics and agriculture. Capital was pumped into real estate and agriculture projects. The takeover of Duc’s agriculture company was one of the deals.

Thaco reported accounts payable of VND118.4 trillion ($4.6 billion) by the end of 2023 and outstanding bonds of VND14 trillion.

Because of Thaco’s sharp profit falls in 2023, assets owned by Duong and his family members dropped from $1.5 billion, according to Forbes, in early 2023 to $1.2 billion by June 5.

Analysts said Duong’s assets possibly decreased because of Thaco’s lower valuation. Prior to that, in 2019, Jardine Cycle & Carriage Limited bought Thaco shares (privately issued) had a valuation of $9.2 billion.

Meanwhile, VietinBank Securities’ (CTS) financial report showed that in the first half of 2023, CTS sold 4.7 million unlisted shares, valued at VND141 billion (VND30,000 per share). As such, Thaco’s valuation was VND91.5 trillion at that time ($3.8 billion), which was much lower.

Thaco is an economic group with investments in many different fields. Its subsidiaries include Thaco Agri (agriculture production), Thaco Industries (mechanical engineering and supporting industries), Thadico (investment and construction), Thilogi (logistics) and Thiso (trade and services).

Tran Ba Duong, with total assets of $1.2 billion, was on the list of Vietnam’s six dollar billionaires released by local newspapers in mid-May.

The other five names on the list included Vingroup president Pham Nhat Vuong ($4.4 billion), Vietjet president Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao ($2.8 billion), HoaPhat president Tran Dinh Long ($2.6 billion), Techcombank president Ho Hung Anh ($1.7 billion), and Masan Group President Nguyen Dang Quang ($1.2 billion).

Manh Ha