Vietnam’s 5 richest billionaires in 2024 – net worths, ranked: from VietJet Air boss Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao to Techcombank’s Ho Hung Anh – but which self-made man’s career started in a car factory?
- Disgraced property mogul Truong My Lan may have been the richest person in Vietnam at one point – before she was caught taking out billions in fraudulent bank loans
- Tran Ba Duong’s Truong Hai Group has worked with the likes of Mazda, Peugeot and Kia, while Pham Nhat Vuong pivoted from instant noodles to electric vehicles via VinFast
According to the Forbes World’s Real-Time Billionaires List on April 25, the total assets of the five wealthiest individuals in Vietnam amount to some US$12.1 billion combined.
Despite this tremendous wealth, their combined assets still come in at significantly less than what disgraced property mogul Truong My Lan was ordered to repay by the courts. Recently sentenced to death on April 11, Truong has been ordered to return some US$27 billion, according to reports by BBC. The courts have little hope of recovering this sum in relation to US$44 billion in fraudulent loans she had taken out from the Saigon Commercial Bank though. Considering these numbers, Truong might have been the wealthiest person in Vietnam at one point.
Here, we look at Vietnam’s five billionaires and their road to earning their fortune – who each appear to have quite different stories, according to Forbes.
5. Tran Ba Duong, 64
Net worth: US$1.2 billion
A self-made billionaire, Tran got his start working as a mechanic in an automobile factory before finding his niche within the same industry. When he founded Truong Hai Group in 1997 (initially known as Truong Hai Auto Corporation), his focus was on car sales, but he quickly shifted to focus on building an assembly line and working with foreign car manufacturers, including Kia, Mazda and Peugeot.
The company further expanded in 2008 when Singaporean company Jardine Cycle and Carriage – part of the Jardine Matheson multinational conglomerate, based in Hong Kong – bought a stake, allowing it to become one of Vietnam’s largest multi-industry holding corporations, with interests beyond the automobile industry. Currently known as the Thaco Group, the firm also invests in property, agriculture and logistics.
4. Ho Hung Anh, 53
Net worth: US$1.7 billion
Ho is the co-founder of Masan Group, which his friend and business partner Nguyen Dang Quang runs. They met while both studying in Russia. The Masan Group is one of the country’s largest private conglomerates, which operates several subsidiaries including Techcombank and Masan Resources, a mining operation.
Ho is also chairman of Techcombank, a large commercial bank in Vietnam that went public in June 2018. Ho started investing in the bank, in which Nguyen was also an investor, in 1995; they took control in 2006.