Andy Ho, chief investment officer of VinaCapital. — Photo courtesy of VinaCapital

VinaCapital has announced that Andy Ho, 52, Chief Investment Officer, unexpectedly passed away on June 6 morning at his home in HCM City.

Don Lam, CEO and Founding Partner, said: “Andy has been my trusted business partner since 2007, and he has been instrumental in the growth of the VinaCapital Vietnam Opportunity Fund and the company as a whole. More importantly, he has been a close friend who will be missed by me and everyone at the company. I am devastated by this loss.”

“The company has a succession plan that we are implementing and this plan is designed to deal with unexpected events,” the company said in the press release.

Brook Taylor, VinaCapital’s CEO of Asset Management, will serve as interim head of the VinaCapital Vietnam Opportunity Fund (VOF) along with co-managers Khanh Vu and Nguyễn Thị Diệu Phương.

Andy held a Bachelor of Science in Finance and Accounting from the University of Colorado Boulder and an MBA from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was a Certified Public Accountant in the US.

Before joining VinaCapital, he was the Investment Director at Prudential Vietnam, where he looked after the company’s capital market portfolio and developed its banking investment strategies, which provided a return of four times over an 18-month period.

He also held various management positions at Dell Ventures (the investment group of Dell Computer Corp) and professional service company Ernst & Young.

Since joining VinaCapital in 2007, Andy had helped grow the net asset value of VOF to surpass the US$1 billion mark. He deployed over $1 billion in privately negotiated deals and led over $700 million in exits via strategic trade sales. — VNS