HCM CITY: Vietnam’s TTC Group, a sugar, energy and real estate conglomerate, is stepping up production of the sweetener and seeking new investors as it gears up for a Singapore listing for one of its sugar units in five years that will raise around $600 million. Ahead of the planned share sale, the group’s Thanh Thanh Cong Tay Ninh SC or TTC Sugar, will merge with another sugar company to create a combined entity worth $200 million that would be Vietnam’s largest, group officials said in an interview.
TTC Vice Chairwoman Dang Huynh Uc My, who has relocated to Singapore to spearhead the sugar unit’s listing, declined to identify the merger partner but said the deal would be completed early next year. “We aim to become a global player, thus we wanted to list in Singapore,” chief executive officer Thai Van Chuyen said in an interview at the company’s headquarters in Ho Chi Minh City.
The company has already expanded its sugar operations beyond Vietnam to Cambodia and soon to Laos, he said. A supplier to Vietnam Dairy Products JSC and Kido Group Corp., TTC Group is already moving to increase sugar production. It is buying a sugar mill with a designed annual capacity of 70,000 tonnes and a 6,000-hectare sugarcane plantation from HAGL JSC, with the $100 million deal expected to close in October. The mill will start operations in December and production at the plantation is expected to increase five-fold, with a third of its output shipped to Europe in the next five years, My said.
TTC Sugar is among the 10 sugar units owned by the conglomerate and it contributed 53 percent of the latter’s pre-tax profits last year. The group expects its sugar business to generate $35 million out of its 2016 pre-tax income of $62 million. My said the parent conglomerate would invest an additional $600 million in its sugar business through 2020.
