Vietnam's VinFast is moving its headquarters to Singapore as a fledgling electric vehicle maker prepares for a public listing and the first production run of cars for US and European markets, its chief executive told Reuters.
The three-year old unit of the conglomerate Vingroup JSC is expected to start building its VF 8 sport utility vehicle SUV next week, its own EV batteries in August and a US $4 billion US factory by summer-end, Le Thi Thu Thuy said in an interview.
VinFast has filed for an initial public offering IPO in the United States through a Singapore-based holding company, though market conditions may push the deal into 2023, according to Vingroup earlier this month.
Thuy said that Singapore is a jurisdiction that will give investors more confidence because of its Hanoi-based company. We put ourselves in the shoes of the investors. Parent Vingroup is Vietnam's largest listed company by market value, with businesses as varied as retail and real estate. VinFast was founded in 2019 to build conventional petrol-powered cars before switching to EVs in 2021.
Vingroup said in May it saw a global EV shortage, despite the fact that the market is crowded with established automakers vying with a miscellany of startups. VinFast has invested heavily to develop models for overseas markets, despite a local line-up of just one small EV, the e 34.
Alongside its VF 8, it has been developing the larger VF 9, though that was delayed by about a month because of the impact of COVID 19 containment measures in Shanghai on suppliers, Thuy said.
Thuy said that we will deliver cars to the international market by the end of the year, starting with the VF 8. All of our effort is on the start of production for the VF 8.