Newsletter 2022/2

⚡Focus topic: Masan - A food giant under full steam

​

The name "Masan" probably means little to most people in Germany and Europe. This corporate conglomerate is currently in the process of taking a dominant position in Vietnam's food sector. ​

​

The company was founded in 1996. It initially operated as a food manufacturer. In addition to spices, it also produced fish and soy sauce. Meat processing and coffee were added later. Masan acquired shares in one of the country's largest banks and entered the commodities business. In 2009, Masan was listed on the Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange. In addition to the expansion of the aforementioned business segments, the company made press mainly by buying the retail and agricultural division of the largest corporate conglomerate "Vingroup". In one fell swoop, Masan became the market leader in Vietnamese retail.

​

Today Masan has four business areas:

1. The CrownX

   • Retail, about the acquisition of the retail business of "Vingroup" in 2019

   • food production

2. meat processing

3. Financial Services, especially with "Techcombank"

4. Raw materials business, including through the acquisition of the German company "HC Starck" in 2019

​

In 2021, Masan achieved sales of EUR 3.6 billion. The company's profit was EUR 900 million.

​

👑 TheCrownX: As described above, Masan has grown massively in recent years, mainly through acquisitions. This applies in particular to the retail sector. With its broad portfolio in the consumer sector, Masan has decided to combine its retail and food processing under the "The CrownX" platform. This is to become a "point of life " platform both online and offline , which effectively satisfies the daily needs of Vietnamese consumers. This project also seems interesting to international investors. In 2021, various companies, including Alibaba, invested $1.1 billion in The CrownX. This company generated sales of EUR 2.4 billion in 2021, making it Masan's largest business area by far.

​

🏪 Retail: Masan is particularly interesting for German food exporters because of its retail business. At the end of 2021, the company operated 122 supermarkets under the "Winmart" brand and 2619 convenience stores under the "Winmart+" brand. Most of these outlets came into the group through the above-mentioned acquisition of the retail business from Vingroup at the end of 2019. Masan is now by far the largest retailer in the country. The Masan Group  recently announced that it would operate 30,000 outlets (2/3 of them franchised) in 2025, which would represent a tenfold increase in current market coverage. It is therefore not to be expected that Masan will lose its market leadership in the coming years.

​

🧃Food processing: In the field of food production, Masan is one of the leading companies in the country. Consumer brands such as "Chin-Su" (various sauces and ready meals), "Nam-Ngu" (fish sauce) and Omachi (ready-to-eat noodles) are indispensable in most supermarkets and households in Vietnam. However, Masan is also expanding into new sectors such as bottled water, beer and processed meat products.

​

🥩 "Meatlife Deli" does not belong to "TheCrownX" as a meat brand. With a turnover of EUR 768 million in 2021, it is nonetheless an integral part of the Masan Group. In addition to the fresh meat business and cutting, Masan is also active in pork production.

​

☝️ For German exporters, the Masan Group is relevant in the following areas:

• Sales channel for processed food: Masan is the leader in Vietnamese food retail and is therefore an interesting, albeit difficult to develop, partner for every exporting company from Germany.

• Customer for unprocessed food: Pre-products and additives for the food processing business are certainly partly imported by Masan. German companies can position themselves here.

• Products in the field of meat production: Both machines and systems for animal fattening and animal feed are products that may be requested by the Masan division "Meatlife Deli".

​

Access to Masan is ideally via a distributor. More details on this  👉 here .

​

The Masan Group provides extensive information in the annual reports on its homepage 👉 here .

​

​