At a Dialogue with VietNamNet on December 6, Nguyen Ngoc Thuy, Chair of Egroup, admitted that Apax English experienced overly hot growth.

The businessman from Hanoi said in mid-2019, he planned to cut capital costs and switch from borrowing money to calling for investment and contracting investment funds in 2020. However, because of the Covid-19 pandemic, the plan was disrupted.

Encouraged by success, the business ran too fast and stumbled. This was also the time when Egroup developed too rapidly, opening many English centers, including ones which operated for a short time before they shut down. At times, the business incurred a loss of VND1 trillion just within six months. 

To date, the ‘father’ of Apax, the largest English chain in the country, has had many dialogues with investors, shareholders and partners to discuss debt payment extension to gather strength on restructuring. The time needed for restructuring is several years. 

In fact, Thuy faces difficulties in many fields as Apax Holdings, the parent company of Apax, has total debts nearly as twice as much as stockholder equity and has invested in many fields, from education to entertainment to real estate, through subsidiaries and affiliates such as English Now, Steame Garten and Apax.

IBC shares of Apax Holdings on December 8 fell for the 12th consecutive session to VND6,580 per share.

Doan Nguyen Duc, president of Hoang Anh Gia Lai, is also experiencing the worst crisis in his career, which began in 2016 with debt of up to billions of dollars. 

Hoang Anh Gia Lai made a big bet on hundreds of thousands of hectares of rubber but it suffered heavily when rubber prices plummeted.

Novaland, owned by Bui Thanh Nhon, known as one of the leading enterprises in the real estate sector with super-projects across the country, has to undergo restructuring or it will collapse.

Novaland has bought back VND1 trillion worth of bonds before maturity and mortgaged all the shares at Van Phat Real Estate and The Forest City for the $100 million loan from Credit Suisse AG.  Nhon plans to return as chair of Novaland and legal representative of Novaland.

Hai Phat Invest (HPX) has also had hundreds of millions of shares transferred recently. On November 30 alone, 54 percent of shares in circulation changed hands. HPX prices have been decreasing to floor prices and have lost 80-90 percent of value within a short time. Hai Phat also needs more time for restructuring. 

Manh Ha