Vinh Hoan Corp (VHC) can become the first Vietnamese seafood company to reach a billion dollar capitalization

At the end of the trading session on 1st June 2022, Vinh Hoan's VHC hit the ceiling price with 109,900 VND/share, liquidity of more than 3.4 million units. This is also the new level of VHC in the past 15 years, the capitalization accordingly increased to VND 20,000 billion, up nearly 75% from the beginning of the year.

VHC's strong price increase is a reflection of its solid business foundation and great opportunities from the current Russia-Ukraine tension. In particular, the Russia-Ukraine conflict opens up a large market for Vietnamese pangasius when this product is expected to be able to replace the Russian pollock in the diet of consumers in the European region.

At the 2022 Annual General Meeting of Shareholders, Ms. Nguyen Ngo Vi Tam, General Director of VHC, also emphasized that the conflict between Russia and Ukraine will bring advantages for this company in the EU market. In particular, some supermarkets have started to restrict imports of pollock and haddock from Russia while the demand for white fish in the EU is very high, which is an opportunity for Vietnamese pangasius in general and VHC in particular.

Currently, the European seafood market is heavily dependent on whitefish from Russia. According to data from the Groundfish Forum, Russia ranks first in global pollock production, and second in Atlantic cod, Pacific cod, and Haddock. Therefore, European whitefish importers have been facing a great challenge in finding alternative sources in case the EU imposes a ban on this Russian item. This is an opportunity for the catfish to fill the void left by Russia.

Only in the UK market, the recent Russia-Ukraine conflict seems not related to the Vietnam-UK pangasius trade. However, this could open up new opportunities for Vietnamese pangasius enterprises to boost exports value to this market in the near future.

Before that, in 2020, the UK had to directly import up to 48,000 tons of white fish from Russia, and the UK also imported 143,000 tons of white fish from China but originated from Russia. Other sources of British whitefish imports from Norway, Poland, and Germany also come from Russia.

According to calculations, this sudden decrease in the amount of white fish in the UK can push the price of seafood materials in this market to increase by at least 20-30% compared to before. British importers are facing many difficulties in finding alternative product sources, in order to minimize damage to consumers.

Therefore, this is a good opportunity for Vietnamese pangasius companies to boost sales in this market. In that, VHC is currently the biggest Vietnamese pangasius exporters to the UK.

In fact, the business index of VHC also continuously broke out. Accumulated in the first 4 months, VHC recorded a total revenue of 4,924 billion Vietnamese dong, up 88% over the same period last year.

According to the financial statements of the first quarter of 2022, VHC recorded a profit after tax of shareholders of the parent company of VND 548 billion Vietnamese dong, 4.2 times higher. This result came from the increase in both output and selling prices, and the recovery of most markets, especially the US and EU.

Taking advantage of the strong increase of shares, VHC has just planned to sell 1.4 million treasury shares after being approved by the Securities Commission in order to increase working capital for production and business activities.

Compiled by Tra My