The offer of such a size is expected to attract foreign investor and spur the company’s long-term growth.

Vietnam’s second largest coffee exporter Simexco Daklak is planning to sell a reportedly 50% stake to the public and may seek foreign investment as soon as next year, Bloomberg reported. 

State-run Simexco Daklak has submitted its share sale proposal to the Dak Lak Provincial Party Committee, which owns the company, CEO Le Tien Hung said in an interview with Bloomberg. 

The company, which is officially known as Daklak September 2nd Import-Export, supplies robusta coffee beans to Nestle SA and Jacobs Douwe Egberts BV.

Hung declined to reveal the expected deal value, saying he hopes to find suitable foreign investor to spur long-term growth. 

With the expected offering amount of 50% stake, Hung considered the offer of that size could help the company grow. 

Simexco, founded in 1993, ships between 80,000 metric tons and 120,000 tons of coffee beans a year, its website says, trailing only Ho Chi Minh City-based Intimex Group, the country’s leading exporter.

Additionally, Simexco also processes and trades pepper, rubber and other agricultural products. The company is forecasting 2019 revenue of VND4.1 trillion (US$177 million), a 3% decrease from last year amid sluggish global coffee prices, according to Hung.

Meanwhile, Vietnam National Coffee Corporation, the nation’s largest state-owned robusta producer, said in 2017 it was planning a share sale.

Vietnam is the world’s largest producer of robusta beans, used primarily for instant coffee. The country’s robusta exports are forecast at US$3.8 billion to US$4.2 billion next year, Nguyen Quoc Toan, head of the agriculture ministry’s department of agricultural products processing and market development, said at a coffee conference in Buon Ma Thuot on March 10.

​Vietnam shipped US$3.54 billion of coffee last year, according to government statistics.

Hanoitimes