Mekong Capital to sell stake in $200m Loc Troi

Mekong Capital is to sell its stake in Vietnamese crop chemicals company Loc Troi in a public listing that will value the company at more than $200 million.

A spokeswoman for Vietnam-based Mekong Capital, which holds 6.1 percent of Loc Troi’s shares, told Agri Investor the business will list on July 24, with Mekong Capital having agreed a price of D68,000 per share ($3, €2.60) valuing the company at $201 million.

Loc Troi’s 67.2 million shares will be listed on Vietnam’s Unlisted Public Company Market, with the sale to be undertaken in several blocks and completed by the end of September this year, the spokeswoman confirmed.

Loc Troi distributes and manufactures crop chemicals, and supplies seeds and rice.

She said the exit was motivated by the fact that Mekong Capital’s Azalea Vietnam Fund, from which the firm invested, is nearing the end of its ten-year life and the firm needs to wind up the fund by the end of the year.

Mekong Capital’s original plan was to exit via a trade sale, according to the spokeswoman, but the firm’s 6.1 percent ownership is typically too small for industrial buyers or large private equity firms to buy.

The firm’s Azalea Vietnam Fund was launched in June 2007 to make late stage and lower risk minority investments in companies that were close to a public listing. The firm invested in Loc Troi 2008 when the company was a state-owned concern and known as An Giang Plant Protection.

Mekong Capital raised its fourth fund, Mekong Enterprise Fund III, a $112 million vehicle, in May 2016. The fund targets investments ranging from $8 million to $15 million, making minority and majority acquisitions.