Vietnam's richest woman has assets of $500 million

Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao, CEO of Vietjet Air, has officially become the richest Vietnamese female, after Vietjet Air put its shares into transactions on the bourse.

VietNamNet Bridge - Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao, CEO of Vietjet Air, has officially become the richest Vietnamese female, after Vietjet Air put its shares into transactions on the bourse.

VJC shares of Vietjet Air were traded at the ceiling price of VND108,000 per share at the first trading session on February 28.

VJC now has the capitalization value of VND32.4 trillion, or $1.4 billion. Meanwhile, analysts believe that VJC price may rise to VND150,000 per share and the capitalization value may rise to VND45 trillion, or $2 billion.

Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao, CEO of Vietjet Air, has officially become the richest Vietnamese female, after Vietjet Air put its shares into transactions on the bourse.

Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao, CEO of Vietjet Air, who directly and indirectly owns 33 percent of VJC, has stock assets of $500 million.

The other two richest people in the country are Pham Nhat Vuong, president of Vingroup who has VND33.3 trillion in stock assets and Trinh Van Quyet, president of FLC, who has VND43.4 trillion.

With the position, Thao is above Tran Dinh Long, president of Hoa Phat Group, and Bui Thanh Nhon, president of Novaland, who are both rich and influential in Vietnam.

The second richest Vietnamese woman is Pham Thu Huong, vice president of Vingroup, the wife of Vuong with stock assets of VND5.7 trillion. The third richest woman is Pham Thuy Hang, Huong’s syster, with VND3.8 trillion.

Meanwhile, Vu Thi Hien, the wife of Tran Dinh Long, and Truong Thi Le Khanh, have fallen out of the top 10 stock millionaires.

Bloomberg predicted that Thao would be the first self-made female billionaire. Not only holding VJC, Thao also owns a large amount of HDBank and Sovico Holding shares.

Thao became a self-made dollar millionaire at the age of 21. She went to the former Soviet Union to study when she was 17 and started her business at the age of 18 by trading goods between Eastern Europe and Vietnam.

When she was 21 years old, she earned the first one million dollars by selling facsimile machines and rubber plastics.

After returning to Vietnam, she contributed capital to set up Techcombank and VIB, the two of the first privately run commercial banks in Vietnam.

With Vietjet Air, Thao created a boom in both the aviation market and marketing industry. Vietjet advertised itself with the images of girls in bikinis, which was a contrast to the images of girls in long dresses that Vietnam Airlines, the nation’s flag air carrier, used.

Thao is never interested in small affairs, and only makes big deals.