Mekong Capital has divested its entire holding in The Gioi Di Dong, also Mobile World Investment JSC, after more than 10 years of investment, the fund announced on January 29.

Its investment vehicle, Enterprise Fund II (MEF II), originally invested US$3.5 million in the mobile device retailer for a 35 per cent stake in 2007. It started an exit process before the listing of Mobile World in 2014 and gradually sold parts of shares to institutional investors nearly once every quarter after the listing.

The final sale of five million shares, sold at a price of VND165,000 (US$7.24) each share, completed on January 29 this year.

During the 10-year holding period, this investment generated a return multiple of 57x and an internal rate of return of 61.1 per cent in US dollars, making it one of the most successful equity investments in the history of Asian private equity, the fund said.

The cumulative net proceeds from the sale of MEF II’s MobileWorld shares and dividends received was $199.4 million.

“It’s unfortunate that we must now end our ten-and-a-half-year journey together with Mobile World,” Chris Freund, Partner at Mekong Capital, said in a statement.

“Our fund that invested in Mobile World, MEF II, was launched in 2006 and ultimately had a 12-year term, hence we needed to complete the divestment of our remaining investment in MEF II, including Mobile World, in the first few months of 2018,” Chris explained the reason for divestment.

MEF II is a closed-end fund which is allowed to operate in the 12-year term as registered in its business licence. It is scheduled to stop operation in the middle of 2018.

Mobile World has grown from seven stores in 2007 to over 2,000 stores today under four different retail brands: thegioididong.com, Dien may Xanh, Bach hoa Xanh and vuivui.com. The company has also recently announced the acquisition of Tran Anh Digital World and Phuc An Khang pharmacy chain.

Mekong Capital’s funds have completed 32 private equity investments in Viet Nam, of which 24 have been fully exited. — VNS