Mr Nguyen Dang Quang is no longer listed as a USD billionaire

DNHN - The reason for Mr Nguyen Dang Quang’s departure from the list may be due to the downward pressure on Masan Group’s MSN shares at the beginning of this year.

As of January 16, according to the latest update from Forbes, Mr Nguyen Dang Quang, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Masan Group, no longer appears on the list of USD billionaires.

The list of Vietnamese billionaires currently only records 5 people, including Mr Pham Nhat Vuong - Chairman of the Board of Directors of Vingroup, Mr Tran Dinh Long - Chairman of Hoa Phat, Ms Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao - Chairman of VietJet, Mr Tran Ba Duong - Chairman of Thaco and Mr Ho Hung Anh - Chairman of Techcombank. Compared to the beginning of the year, the assets of Vietnamese billionaires have recorded fluctuations.

The reason for Mr Nguyen Dang Quang’s departure from the list may be due to the pressure on Masan Group’s MSN shares at the beginning of this year. In the first 10 trading sessions of the year, this stock recorded 6 sessions of price decreases.

MSN shares are currently trading around VND 66,000 per share, down sharply from over VND 100,000 per share a year ago.

In October 2023, Mr Quang left the Forbes billionaire list, then was added back on January 3, 2024, with an asset value of 1 billion USD.

Previously, in the period from November 2019 to October 2020, Mr Nguyen Dang Quang was also not recognised as a billionaire by Forbes when he owned assets of less than 1 billion USD.

Mr Quang first appeared on Forbes’ billionaire list in 2019. His net worth was once recorded by Forbes at its highest level of 1.9 billion USD in 2022.

Most of the asset value of the Chairman of Masan Group is calculated based on the number of MSN shares that he and his family own. According to statistics, Mr Nguyen Dang Quang holds nearly 45% of Masan Group’s shares through Masan JSC and Hoa Huong Duong.

Mr Quang is one of the Vietnamese billionaires who successfully started a business in Eastern Europe. Mr Quang started his business in the 1990s after studying in Russia by selling instant noodles to Vietnamese people living there. In addition to the position of Chairman of Masan Group, this businessman is also a member of the Board of Directors of Techcombank.

The richest person in Vietnam today is Mr Pham Nhat Vuong, who currently has 4.5 billion USD, ranking 651st in the world according to Forbes. Meanwhile, according to the Bloomberg Billionaire Index ranking, Mr Vuong’s assets reached 8.49 billion USD, ranking 277th in the world. Mr Vuong was ranked back in the top 500 USD billionaires by Bloomberg’s calculations on January 3, after Bloomberg took into account the assets of Vietnam’s richest billionaire formed from the car company VinFast.

Previously, Bloomberg had not calculated Mr Vuong’s assets formed from the electric car company VinFast for many months. According to Bloomberg, Mr Vuong controls 98.5% of the shares in VinFast. However, in the calculation of the statistical unit, the controlling stake through Vingroup was eliminated to eliminate double counting, the recorded rate was 45%.

Meanwhile, the assets of VietJet’s Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao also decreased by 100 million USD to 2.3 billion USD. The assets of Hoa Phat Group’s Chairman Tran Dinh Long recorded a similar decrease, down to 2.2 billion USD.

The decrease of 100 million USD also occurred with the assets of the family of Thaco’s Chairman Tran Ba Duong (Thaco) and Techcombank’s Chairman Ho Hung Anh. Currently, both billionaires own assets of 1.4 billion USD.

Mai Anh