Restructuring and introducing a new CEO, Leflair Group covers Southeast Asia

Why did you decide to cooperate with SoPa and become CEO of Leflair Group (LFG)?

I appreciate Sopa's trust in me personally on this new journey and I also want to boldly give myself a chance to fulfil my dream in a completely new and different role. The Leflair platform was familiar to me and now I have supportive backing for finance, operation management, investment, and a strategy specifically planned by SoPa – a leading loyalty and data marketing ecosystem in Southeast Asia.

I believe in myself as someone with a clear understanding of and great enthusiasm for Leflair. Meanwhile, SoPa – the investor of Leflair Group – currently has an evolving and growing ecosystem with countless post-IPO opportunities, a good capital investment budget, and experience in effective management skills. With these specific conditions, I have full confidence in LFG growth, especially when looking at the exciting and hopeful growth of the Southeast Asian market – a market which the group places as a top priority.

As someone who is familiar with the old Leflair platform, how is your assessment of Leflair after its restructuring?

The investment and support of SoPa, and the restructuring and expansion activities, have helped LFG become a high-quality online shopping platform in the luxury and lifestyle fields. Combined with the strategy of buying more platforms and member companies in communications and marketing, the group will increase the brand shopping experience for users and bring more benefits to partners through increased sales volume and marketing activities to create brand awareness throughout Southeast Asia.

The market will not only recognise Leflair as a leading platform but also as a refreshed and diversified LFG that offers many more services.

LFG also brings a new mission to expand its memberships while focusing on developing its marketing and retail ecosystem in the luxury and lifestyle segments.

How is Vietnam important to SoPa?

According to assessments, Vietnam has shown encouraging growth even during the pandemic. During this time, LFG has also achieved business growth that far exceeded its expectations. This shows Vietnam to be an active and interesting investment market.

As previously announced, it is expected that most of the capital raised from the incoming IPO will be used to accelerate the expansion of the platform through the acquisition of e-commerce and app companies in Vietnam and the across the region. In this plan, the Leflair platform will have the significant advantage of prioritising investments in the SoPa ecosystem, including five core areas in which LFG is one of the largest core businesses in the industry.

Could you tell us about LFG's upcoming development strategy?

As the CEO of Leflair Group, I will be responsible for executing the platform expansion strategy across Southeast Asia. At the same time, LFG will continue to expand mergers and acquisitions (M&A) negotiations to acquire relevant platforms in the online retail and lifestyle segments, gradually completing its leading Southeast Asia retail and marketing ecosystem by connecting hundreds of thousands of high-end fashion brands.

In addition, M&A deals in other related fields such as media, marketing, and logistics will be also progressed to help LFG move towards fundraising rounds for its IPO soon.

In terms of M&As, SoPa focuses on five key areas

What will be the focus of SoPa's M&A activities in the near future?

For M&As, we are focusing on five main areas. They are companies in the supply chain of the retail industry, including distributors and companies that specialise in acquiring brands from abroad, companies that belong to the supply chain, and e-commerce sales platforms. In addition, we are also looking for other sales platforms such as cosmetics and fashion.

We are also looking for companies in the field of marketing services, forwarding, warehousing, and those that specialise in bringing brands into e-commerce platforms.

Next year, we also want to acquire companies in Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand to expand our operations to the rest of Southeast Asia. The story of LFG must include the entire Southeast Asian region, not a single country.

To compete in the Vietnamese market, what are LFG's main advantages?

After restructuring, LFG's format reshaped its retail supply chain. Currently, Leflair is focusing on perfecting its ecosystem. By combining related companies into a sole ecosystem, we will improve the business situation of previously underperforming companies and bring them back to profitability.

With such a model, Leflair Group also has a new mission to no longer be a sales platform only but to become a perfect ecosystem for member companies. When the operation of these companies is changed we can bring a totally new shopping experience to our customers, and from there, we can bring even more brands into fast-growing markets like Vietnam. This is a fundamental factor to ensure the best competitive position in the market for the LFG ecosystem as a complete supply chain.