People walk past the Nasdaq headquarters in Times Square in New York City. — AFP
HANOI: Vietnam tech firm VNG Group, which delayed a US initial public offering (IPO) last year, still plans an American listing at an undetermined time, chief executive officer Kelly Wong says.
“The challenge for us is always going to be timing,” given concerns about the US economy and President Donald Trump’s global tariff policy weighing on investors’ risk appetite, Wong said on the sidelines of the company’s annual shareholders meeting in Ho Chi Minh City.
VNG Ltd withdrew its registration for an IPO on the Nasdaq Global Select Market in early 2024 after filing a plan to offer almost 22 million shares in August 2023.
It has been exploring going public in the United States since at least 2017.
VNG has weighed switching its Vietnam listing to the Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange from the Unlisted Public Company Market, known as UpCom.
Shares of VNG fell 0.6% last Friday’s close to the lowest level since May 5.
VNG said last September that the company was being investigated by Ho Chi Minh City police, without providing further details.
Co-founder Le Hong Minh temporarily stepped aside but remained chief executive, the company said at the time.
Wong is now the full-time chief executive and Minh is chairman, VNG said.
The Ho Chi Minh City-based company declined to comment about the current state of the police investigation.
Formerly known as Vinagame, VNG had its start in 2004 as a game publisher.
It develops and publishes its own titles as well as local versions of international hits, and has gradually expanded to a wide range of services, such as messaging and mobile payments.
Its messaging app, Zalo, has roughly 78 millions users.
The company is looking to expand its mobile payment service Zalopay app this year to two new foreign markets for Vietnamese abroad, according to Wong.
The company is looking for partners in South-East Asia to embed games or minigames in e-wallet apps to increase global distribution, Wong said in the meeting.
VNG sees growing potential for its digitisation services as companies face pressure to modernise, he said.
VNG targets revenue this year to grow to about 10.8 trillion dong or about US$413.3mil, with an after-tax loss of 620 billion dong, compared with a loss of about 1.2 trillion dong last year. — Bloomberg
