Asanzo plans to call for $21.5 million from its distributors

Pham Van Tam, Chairman of Asanzo Vietnam Ectronics JSC, shared with TheLEADER that the company is planning to sell its 15- per cent stake to call for VND500 billion ($21.5 million) in the period from now to 2020 from its distributors.

Asanzo currently has hundreds of distributors all over the country and many of them have shown their interests in becoming the firm's shareholders.

"This is a step in Asanzo’s IPO plan. Before IPO, we at first would like to share benefits with our distributors with whom we have been in tight cooperation for long time," Tam said. “In addition to our distributors, a large real estate corporation also wished to become our shareholder through the method of 'land exchanged for shares'. However, we prefer cash in order to build a new production factory.”

In 2018, Asanzo plans to build a new factory with an area of about 17,000 square meters and an investment of over VND400 billion ($17.2 million) in Cu Chi district, Ho Chi Minh City.

Tam explained the reason for calling investments from its close distributors is that Asanzo is not suitable for giant strategic investors, such as Samsung or TCL because there are many contradictions in the development views as well as the complicated demands given by these groups.

In the past, China-based TCL had approached Asanzo, but no deal was reached because Asanzo was afraid of being taken over by the Chinese partner.

However, with the goal of IPO in 2021, Asanzo now has a lot of work to do to clarify its governance structure and financial data in order to receive investments.

Tam said, "Asanzo now has no concern about the capital for building the factory. Asanzo’s IPO plan aims to expand its production scale much larger and diversify products including refrigerator, washing machine, laptop and tablet."

Despite being founded in 2013, Asanzo has progressed very quickly. In 2017, the firm's revenue reached 4.6 trillion (nearly $198 million), doubling that of 2016. This year, the firm continues to set the growth target of VND10 trillion (approximately $423 million).

Tam’s ambition is to turn Asanzo into a billion dollar firm by 2021. Assessing the feasibility of this 'dream', Tam said that everything is on the smooth path. 

"In the recent event of World Cup, our TV sales leapt as forecasted. More importantly, consumers have opted for higher-end products, which are 43-45 inch TVs as well as smart TVs rather than focusing on low-cost TVs as they did in the past," Tam said.

According to the global market research firm GfK, Asanzo ranks the fourth in Vietnam's market with 16 per cent market share, following Samsung (35 per cent), Sony (25 per cent) and LG (17 per cent). The Asanzo brand amounts to 70 per cent of market share in rural areas. In addition to televisions, Asanzo also has produced consumer electronics, home appliances and smartphones.