Asia Business Builders
ABB

Overview

Our achievements

We have since our inception provided the following services:

  1. Originating proprietary deals in Vietnam among our local entrepreneurs & company network and assisted with successfully completing the M&A process;
  2. Executing investments in Vietnam for investors and through a ABB Private Equity launched in 2017 to focus on investing in high growth and high impact SMEs.

Our business model

We founded ABB Merchant Banking (“ABBMB“) in 2013 on the premise that foreign and local clients would be best served by a focused merchant banking firm which prioritizes long term relationships with core clients. ABBMB has since its foundation helped businesses in Vietnam grow through forging strategic partnerships with foreign investors with strong operational and technical know-how.

Frontier markets in general, and Vietnam in particular, are difficult and opaque markets to operate in with limited access to quality information. We believe that by maintaining the highest standards of excellence we are creating a niche boutique which excels at closing strategic transactions with dedication, experience and professionalism. In doing this, we are aiming to make an impact on the world we are operating in, and in the process also to make money for our partners and ourselves.

After successfully closing over USD400m worth of strategic M&A transactions in Vietnam, we saw a gap in the market for adding an in-house dedicated private equity platform that solely focuses on investing in smaller & medium-sized companies with strong return dynamics and a commitment to social impact. We therefore launched ABB Private Equity (“ABBPE“) & successfully closed our SME private equity fund in June 2018. We have market-leading standards of internal governance and our institutional grade fund currently manages the wealth of a select group of Development Finance Institutions and local and international family offices. In 2023 we launched our 2nd Private Equity Fund with targeted assets under management of USD100m.

We follow best practice ESG guidelines in our investments and adhere to both IFU’s sustainability policy and DGGF’s ICSR policy.

Our strong track record of working through the complexities for emerging businesses and the intricacies of working on operational and financial improvements with local Vietnamese entrepreneurs makes us uniquely equipped to deliver above average IRRs in Vietnam for our limited partners.

Core team members are all shareholders in the corporate entities we manage, partners in the private equity business and firmly committed to the firm’s long-term success.

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