HCMC – Fund manager Mekong Capital has announced that its Mekong Enterprise Fund II is in the process of selling part of its stake in Golden Gate Joint Stock Company, which runs the mushroom hotpot restaurant chain named Ashima, to a financial investor.
After the transaction, the fund will reduce its ownership in the company from 14.9% to 11.6%. The divestment results in a gross return multiple of 3.6 times and an internal rate of return of approximately 72.2% on the shares sold by the fund.
Chris Freund, managing partner of Mekong Capital said in a statement that the divestment was aimed to realize profits despite Golden Gate’s impressive growth.
“We are delighted with the performance of Golden Gate, which has grown from around five restaurants at the time we invested in April 2008 to around 30 now. We remain very excited about the long term future of the company, but as a lot of value had been created in a short period, we saw this as an opportunity to realize some of our profits while maintaining a stake in the company,” he said.
Golden Gate now operates six Ashima restaurants in HCMC and Hanoi. In 2009, the company launched a new product of conveyor hotpot express restaurant named Kichi Kichi to address the casual dining market segment.
By October 2010, Golden Gate had expanded the Kichi Kichi restaurant chain to 22 outlets in Hanoi, HCMC and Singapore.
The US$50-million Mekong Enterprise Fund II is a private equity fund focusing on equity investments in unlisted companies in Vietnam. The fund has completely disbursed its capital.
