Hope And Hesitation At M&A Forum

Discussion at this year's Vietnam M&A Forum, which took place earlier this month in Ho Chi Minh City, revolved around the challenges facing Vietnam's M&A market and the need for a big push to maintain the momentum of previous years.

As of this month, deals have fallen short of the record levels in 2016, and surpassing the US$5.8 billion total looks like a tall order. Although impressive, last year's figure represented just 5% of Southeast Asia's total M&A activity, with Singapore alone claiming over 50%. Additionally, 64% of the deals in Vietnam were valued at less than US$20 million. While 77% of the deals were domestic, Thai firms were the biggest foreign buyers in terms of value, enacting aggressive takeovers of major Vietnamese firms in retail and consumer goods. In terms of quantity most deals came from Singapore and Japan.