The International Finance Corporation (IFC) recently announced its cooperation with An Phat Holdings (APH) and an expected investment of US$20 million to fund APH’s first compostable material manufacturing plant in Vietnam and the largest of its kind in Southeast Asia.

A packaging factory of An Phat Holdings (Photo courtesy of the group)

IFC plans to invest US$20 million in APH to support the implementation of the plant in the form of a seven-year loan that can be converted into APH shares.

Earlier, on June 22, APH carried out an IPO and announced its plan to list 132.6 million shares to call for investment to build the plant. With this project, APH will take the initiative in raw materials, cut production costs, create a competitive advantage, and make environmentally friendly products popular in both domestic and international markets.

According to IFC, before investing, the organisation carried out a thorough analysis of APH’s financial capacity, potential and development prospects, and its projects.

One of the most important reasons for the investment in APH’s compostable material manufacturing plant was its high possibility of success. APH is the first manufacturer of compostable products in Vietnam. IFC believed in APH’s business goal to promote sustainability of the enterprise and appreciated its responsibility for the environment, society and corporate governance (ESG).

The group has years of experience in operating facilities with an annual capacity of 96,000 tonnes of thin monolayer film. The products are present in nearly 70 countries around the world. Currently, APH is the largest thin monolayer film manufacturer in Southeast Asia with 20% of the market share of Vietnam’s thin monolayer film exports.

APH is the first company in Vietnam to successfully produce compostable products, which are exported to more than 20 countries around the world, including fastidious markets such as France, the UK, Japan, the US and Canada.

An Phat Holdings is the parent company of more than 15 member companies operating in packaging; compostable products and compounds; engineering plastics and building materials plastics; raw materials and chemicals for plastics industry; precision engineering and moulding; industrial real estate. APH also directly owns two listed companies, Hanoi Plastics JSC (NHH) and An Phat Bioplastics JSC (AAA), and indirectly owns more than 10 companies through the two listed companies.

On July 28, APH was listed on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HOSE).

Construction of the US$82 million plant is expected to start in early 2021 in Hai Phong City. It is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2022 with an annual capacity of 20,000 tonnes. When the project comes into operation in 2022, APH expects to reduce production costs by 20%-30% for subsidiaries while the parent company still enjoys a gross profit margin of 25%-30% of this project. APH targets that compostable products will contribute 40%-50% of the group’s packaging revenue by 2023.

As the largest market cap plastic stock in Vietnam, APH’s market capitalisation reached approximately US$414 million after nearly three months of listing.