Vietnam Has Big Plans for Infrastructure. Investors Have a Reason to Ease Back Into Market

Communist Party congresses don’t usually excite financial markets. Vietnam’s confab three months ago looks like an exception. Party leaders committed to an anti-Communist boost for the country’s private sector, to 55% from 42% of gross domestic product by 2025. They earmarked $119 billion for infrastructure over the same four years. That’s one-third of 2020 GDP, or about $7 trillion on a U.S. scale. Investors apparently liked the message. The VanEck Vectors Vietnam exchange-traded fund (ticker: VNM) is up 9% since the Congress wrapped on Feb. 2. Global emerging markets are down 2%. Nick Niziolek, head of global strategies at Calamos Investments, experienced the literal gaps in Vietnamese infrastructure on a prepandemic tour. On his way to scope out a toy factory, he discovered “the bridge there was four barges tied together. Our bus was teetering from raft to raft,” he says. Pouring cash into improvements should enable the government to achieve its 6.5% to 7% annual growth targets while boosting profits for appropriately positioned companies, says Bill Stoops, chief investment officer at Dragon Capital in Ho Chi Minh City. “We’re playing the interlocked sectors of property, banks, and steel,” he says. Dragon’s United Kingdom–listed Vietnam Enterprise Investments fund (VEIL.UK) has gained 17% this year, twice the rise of the VanEck ETF, largely thanks to an Overweight in steelmaker Hoa Phat Group (HPG.Vietnam). “This may be the only exciting steel company in the world,” Stoops says. “They can add capacity without spending much money.” Niziolek, despite or because of the hairy river crossing, is also bullish on Vietnamese property. Calamos owns shares in Vinhomes (VHM.Vietnam), the real estate subsidiary of conglomerate Vingroup (VIC.Vietnam). “New household formation in Vietnam is running at 80,000 to 90,000 a year, and supply at 60,000 to 70,000,” he says. “That’s an exciting long-term opportunity.” Commercial and digital infrastructure isn’t lagging in the well-educated nation of 100 million. Rivaling Hoa Phat as a hot stock is FPT (FPT.Vietnam), a diversified IT provider with a burgeoning outsourcing business in Japan. Shares have jumped by a third this year and can run further, says Sean Fieler, chief investment officer at Equinox Partners. “Vietnamese engineers cost less than in India, and thousands of them are learning Japanese,” he says. Shares in retail champion Mobile World Investment (MWG.Vietnam) are up 20% year to date and still have upside, says Andrew Brudenell, lead frontier markets manager at Ashmore Group. The chain is expanding from cellphones and electronics to groceries. “A nice thing about Vietnam is you can make great money in more understood and proven ideas,” he says. Market infrastructure also took a leap forward last year, when the government approved the online opening of brokerage accounts. That, and a decline in bank interest rates, pushed some three million retail investors into stocks, Stoops says. They have buoyed the market even as foreigners withdraw funds. The foreigners’ retreat is part of a prevailing hangover from a bout of irrational exuberance in 2017-18. It also reflects frustration with what authorities haven’t done: untangle the web of ownership and trading restrictions that keep Vietnam classified as a frontier, not emerging, market. That makes it off-limits for a wall of global money. With all the country’s positives, U.S. investors might have reason to edge back into Vietnam anyway.