The post-equitisation bright and dark picture-Part 2: Hapro and the journey to take advantage of opportunities from equitisation

	Ministry gives push to equitisation of SOEs
	Mobilising revenues from equitisation and divestment to State budget
	Equitisation vital for stock market growth

BRG retail system joins hands with farmers to consume agricultural products before the Covid-19 epidemic.

After nearly twoyears since the completion of the equitisation process, the post-equitisation business plan set by the Hanoi Trade Corporation - Hapro Corporation is gradually reducing and divesting to streamline the apparatus, maintaining its core business as a company with strengths in import, export and service trade.

Comprehensive restructuring

Before equitisation, Hapro was known as a large enterprise, established in 2004, operating in trade, services, import and export and development of commercial infrastructure in the capital. At that time, Hapro was also one of the leading units in the country in exporting handicrafts and some agricultural products. However, the State-owned enterprise model has revealed its shortcomings. Stagnation in activities, the division of rights and responsibilities of workers is sometimes unclear, while business efficiency is not high. In 2014-2016, Hapro's return on assets (ROA), equity (ROE) and turnover (ROS) were only 0.7%, 1.9% and 0.8%, respectively. The State Audit of 2015 showed the ineffective investment situation in Hapro, with sevensubsidiaries with accumulated losses of VND 26.9 billion, 15 joint-venture companies, associated with accumulated losses of VND 94.5 billion and threeother long-term investments accumulated losses of VND 69.4 billion.

Implementing the plan of restructuring State-owned enterprises, at the end of November 2017, Prime Minister Nguyen XuanPhuc issued a decision approving the equitisation plan of the parent company - Hanoi Trading Corporation. After completing the equitisation process (June 2018) and moving to operate as a joint stock company, the company name is Hanoi Trading Corporation - Joint Stock Company (Hapro), charter capital. 2,200 billion, the State does not hold shares. At the initial public offering (IPO), Hapro selected a strategic investor, Motor NA Vietnam Co., Ltd. (Vinamco) - a subsidiary of BRG Group with 65% ownership of the shares. At that time, as the Chairman of BRG Group and Chairman of Hapro Board, Nguyen ThiNga had drastic and comprehensive instructions in the restructuring.

Vu Thanh Son, General Director of Hapro said that after becoming a member of BRG Group, Hapro is operating in a large multi-sector enterprise ecosystem, members of the group not only independently work, but effective linkage and support together to maximize theirpotential and expand their development opportunities.

As a result, in 2019, the corporation's profit before tax reached VND 141 billion, 6.5 times higher than in 2018 and 10 times higher than in 2017 (the year before CPH). Total export turnover of Hapro reached nearly US$60 million with over 40,000 tonnes of all kinds of goods. Every week, Hapro exports more than 40 containers of goods to markets of more than 80 countries and territories. These results demonstrate the right decision on equitising this business.

Focus on core activities

Looking at the reality of the activities, Hapro's business and production activities have continued to expand towards being a domestic and import-export corporation with competitive and sustainablydevelopment capacity, boosting development of commercial infrastructure system in Hanoi for retail system development. According to experts, thanks to the results, Hapro has been promoting its role as a major economic and commercial enterprise, contributing to the implementation of the economic development tasks of the capital.

Therefore, in 2020, although the world economy is volatile, Hapro leaders said they will continue to maintain traditional export markets in more than 80 countries and regions around the world, promoting trade promotion attend and have product display booths, promote the brand to capture the trend of the market at major fairs around the world, in some key markets such as: National Nut and Dried Fruit Conference INC, annual World Rice Conference; Sial Fair - Paris, France Gulfood International Food Agricultural Products Fair in Dubai,Worldfood Moscow Fair (Russia).

Besides, Hapro has been and will continue to accelerate the preparation of investment to soon start a number of commercial centr eprojects under the brand name Hapro Shopping Center, Hapro Shopping Mall, wholesale markets... Hapro has also upgraded, standardized and put the Hapromart 8 supermarket chain of Hapro applied under Home & Food model, contributing to meeting the increasing shopping needs of the Capital's people. Up to now, Hapro's chain system has created increasingly close links between distributors, domestic production units and business units and production units.

In addition to directing and promoting production and business activities, one of the important solutions contributing to the success of the corporation after two years of equitisation is the drastic and comprehensive direction of the general restructuring. Joint stock companies, focusing on specialisation, creating resources for the corporation's core activities of import-export business, investment and development of commercial infrastructure systems; standardiseand develop Hapromart supermarket chain. For secondary businesses, which do not meet development goals and operate inefficiently, Hapro has gradually reduced and divested capital to streamline apparatus, at the same time focusing resources on finance and personnel for core areas as well as areas that need to be expanded. As a result, not only businesses grows but employees' lives also improve.