HÀ NỘI — Two of the five richest people in Việt Nam had a poor start to the new year as they saw their net asset worth decrease.

On March, 2019, Forbes 2020 World Billionaires list included five billionaires from Việt Nam with total assets of US$13.6 billion.

Chairman of Masan Group Nguyễn Đăng Quang loses US$4 million in his assets since March 2019. — Screenshot from Forbes

They included returnees Phạm Nhật Vượng, Nguyễn Phương Thảo and Trần Bá Dương and newcomers Hồ Hùng Anh and Nguyễn Đăng Quang. The list, led by Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of online retail site Amazon, includes 2,153 billionaires with total assets of $8.7 trillion.

On the first day of 2020, while the total assets of the five Vietnamese billionaires increased by $8 million to hit $14.4 billion, the two newcomers saw their personal wealth decrease.

As of January 1, in the update of Forbes list of billionaires, chairman of consumer goods and natural resources firm Masan Group Nguyễn Đăng Quang lost $4 million in his assets. Now at $1 billion, he sits at 2,167th, 450 places lower than his ranking last year.

Data from the local stock market shows continuous declining sessions pulled Masan's shares (MSN) down from a peak of VNĐ91,000 ($3.9) in May to VNĐ56,500 on the last working day of December.

Biillionaire Hồ Hùng Anh — Screenshot from Forbes

Also a newcomer to the list, Hồ Hùng Anh, chairman of Việt Nam Technological and Commercial Joint Stock Bank (Techcombank),  lost $3 million and 421 places in the ranking. He now ranks 1,770th in the list with assets of $1.4 billion.

Last year, Techcombank recorded pre-tax profit of nearly VNĐ10.7 trillion, an year-on-year increase of 31 per cent. The bank is the second largest bank in Việt Nam after State-owned bank Vietcombank.

However, its shares declined badly in the market in June and August, making firm lose about 12 per cent in the market value.

According to Forbes, both Masan and Techcombank are major institutions in Việt Nam, ranked in the top 10 largest enterprises on the HCM Stock Exchange. Techcombank chairman Hùng Anh and Masan chairman Quang used to manage both Techcombank and Masan. Last year, Hùng Anh withdrew from Masan's vice chairman position to focus on Techcombank under the local banking industry’s regulations. Quang, on the other hand, is still vice chairman of Techcombank.

Vingroup chairman Phạm Nhật Vượng. — Screenshot from Forbes website

Not losing a penny from the assets last year, chairman of Thaco – the biggest car company in Việt Nam – Trần Bá Dương and his family still have $1.7 billion. But they lost 128 places in list to rank 1,477th.

Vingroup Chairman Phạm Nhật Vượng, who is still the richest man in Việt Nam with $7.6 billion in assets, added another $1 billion to his assets but fell 13 places and now ranks 242nd in the list. At certain points last year, Vượng was among the 200 richest people on the planet.

Earlier, Vượng shared with Bloomberg that he would spend $2 billion of his personal assets by selling a 10 per cent stake in Vingroup to bring the group’s car of VinFast to the US market.

Billionaire Nguyễn Phương Thảo. — Screenshot from Forbes website

Việt Nam's first female billionaire Nguyễn Phương Thảo became richer and has a higher rank. Thảo’s assets increased by $4 million to reach $2.7 billion and she is up 73 places from last year to rank 935th.

Thảo’s budget airline, VietJet Air, which offers more than 300 flights a day, operates some 40 per cent of the nation's flights and became public in February 2017. She also has investments in HDBank and real estate.

At the end of last year, shares of VietJet Air added 1.2 per cent to reach VNĐ146,200 each while Vingroup’s shares stayed unchanged at VNĐ115,000. — VNS