State enterprise dominates top 500 Vietnamese companies

Vietnam Report on Nov 5, 2010 announced the list of top 500 Vietnamese companies, VNR500, built on the scheme of Fortune 500. PetroVietnam tops the VNR500 while Saigon Gold and Silver ACB-SJC Joint Stock Company tops private enterprises.

VNR500 is the result of the independent survey conducted annually by Vietnam Report with the support and consultancy of domestic and foreign experts, headed by US Prof John Quelch specialized in marketing, Associate Dean of Harvard Business School, as well as Hamilton Consultants, an American consulting agency.

VNR500 lists Vietnam’s 500 biggest companies ranked according to their turnovers, without regard to distinction (public/private, or Vietnamese/foreign management).To date, the VNR500 list has been published 4 times : the first edition (ranking for 2007) was released in November 2007, the second (ranking for 2008) in November 2008, the third in November 2009 and this edition in November 2010.

The organizing board wishes to provide a list of Vietnamese most prestigious enterprises with the ranking based on international standards. The database serving the ranking is sourced from the figures about total assets, turnover, profit, growth rate and number of laborers released by the General Statistics Office (GSO); Vietnam Report’s surveys; and prospectuses provided by enterprises. Vietnamese companies do not have to pay any kind of fee to become the candidates for the ranking.

The organizer hopes to develop VNR500, into a symbol with national and international prestige. The organizer also hopes to build up a VNR500 Club, turning it into the club of leading companies in Vietnam, and the bridge bringing Vietnamese brand names to the world’s market.

The top 500 will be the enterprises which have recorded prominent production and business results and made great contributions to the development of Vietnam’s economy, therefore VNR500 reflects the strength of Vietnam in economic development and global integration.

The VNR500 2010 was built up based on the database collected by Vietnam Report with the reference to the latest statistics about enterprises nationwide announced by GSO (the updates by December 31, 2009). The ranking of top 500 companies was made based on their 2009’s turnover.

Readers can also find other information in VNR500, like the groups of companies with biggest profit, highest growth rates, highest number of laborers, and biggest total assets.

Vietnam Report’s survey result has been announced in two lists as follows:

List 1: The top 500 companies that have biggest turnovers (including state owned, foreign invested and private owned) which has revenue from VND1.2 trillion up and list 2: List 2: The top 500 Vietnamese private owned companies that have biggest turnovers. The private owned companies mean the ones in which private owned capital account for 51% of total capital at least. These companies are eligible to join the VND500bil Club.

When we look at top companies on the VNR500 list for 2010, state-owned companies or corporations still accounted for a dominant percentage of 46%, holding a key role in the Vietnamese economy that is undergoing deregulation, particularly in upstream industrial sectors or in import replacement sectors meanwhile private companies accounted for 31.2% and FDI companies holds 23.8%.

Among the top ten of VNR500, state-own enterprises take an overwhelming percentage including PetroVietnam, Petrolimex and Electricity of Vietnam, VNPT, Vinacomin, Viettel group, Agribank, vinafood2 and PVEP.

Ranking	Companies
1	Vietnam National Oil and Gas Group (Petro Vietnam)
2	Vietnam National Petroleum Corporation (Petrolimex)
3	Electricity of Vietnam (EVN)
4	Vietnam Posts and Telecommunications group (VNPT)
5	Vietnam national Coal Minerral Industries Holding Corporation Ltd ( Vinacomin)
6	Saigon Jewelry Company Ltd (SJC)
7	Viettel Group
8	Vietnam Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Agribank)
9	Vietnam Southern Food Corrporation (Vinafood2)
10	PetroVietnam Exploration Production Corporation (PVEP)

Authorities now recognize the private sector’s importance in the country’s competiveness and they are striving to gradually reduce state participation in the economy. Vietnam Report also made another list of the first 500 private including Saigon Gold and Silver ACB-SJC joint stock company, Financing Promoting Technology (FPT), ACB bank, Vinamilk, DoJi Gold and Gem group.

Ranking	Companies
1	Saigon Gold and Silver ACB-SJC joint stock company
2	Corporation for Financing and Promoting Technologies (FPT)
3	Asia Commercial JSBank (ACB)
4	Vietnam Dairy Products JSC (Vinamilk)
5	DoJi Gold and Gem  Group
6	Thai Hung Trading JSC
7	Phu Nhuan Jewelry JSC
8	Saigon Thuong Tin Commercial JSBank (Sacombank)
9	Vietnam Technological and Commercial JSBank (Techcombank)
10	Hoa Phat Group

About the sector structure, VNR500 showed that key factors still hold their position including banking, financial, gold and gem, telecommunication, electricity, and petro. It is noteworthy that 2 telecommunication companies and first time rice exporter appeared in the top 10 list.

Top 20 companies are eligible to join the $1 billion Club with an average revenue of $2.7 billion. Top Vietnamese companies are narrowing the gap between them with global companies and top 50 companies in 2010 are qualified to joint Forbes 2000 for top 2000 global biggest companies.

FDI enterprises are the most effective with ROA of over 13%, doubling that of state-own one of 5.2% and 4 times higher than that of private sector of 2.5%. State-owned enterprises lead in contributing to state budget, 4 times higher than FDI enterprises and 10 times higher than that of private sector.

Most CEOs in big companies are over 50 years old (26.4%) while young CEOs of 31-40 years old accounted only 1.2%. Young CEOs in private and FDI sectors accounted for 4.2% and 2.1%.

Most companies are based in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City with 21% and 23.6% respectively while in other places of under 6%.

Over 20% of companies in VNR 500 2009 are removed from the list for 2010, indicating changes in the Vietnam economy in general and big companies in particular. – Stoxplus.com

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