Trung Son was established in 1997 and currently owns 140 pharmacies, concentrated in 9 provinces in the Mekong Delta and Ho Chi Minh City.
Recently, Dongwha Pharm Group (Korea) announced that it has signed an agreement to buy back 51% of shares in Trung Son Pharma - a company operating a pharmacy chain in Vietnam.
The value of the deal is estimated at 30 million USD (about VND705 billion). Dongwha Pharm plans to acquire 12.15 million shares of Trung Son Pharma. The deal is expected to be completed in October 2023, to diversify the investments of this Korean group.
Trung Son was established in 1997 and currently owns 140 pharmacies, concentrated in 9 provinces in the Mekong Delta and Ho Chi Minh City. This scale has increased strongly from 23 stores in 2018.
According to The Korea Economic Daily, Zhongshan recorded sales of about 74 billion won ($568 million) last year, an average growth rate of 46 percent a year since 2019. The company offers a variety of medicines and products. including prescription and over-the-counter drugs, health supplements, cosmetics, medical devices, and health and beauty (H&B) products.
With the participation of Dongwha Pharm, Trung Son is expected to increase its scale to 460 stores by 2026. At the same time, Dongwha Pharm wants to penetrate the Vietnamese market with a portfolio of over-the-counter drugs such as Whal Myung Su, Each Paste, and Pancold. Due to the growing demand for vitamin, red ginseng, and beauty-related products in Vietnam, the Korean group plans to increase its product offering with health supplements. and cosmetics.
“This acquisition is an important step towards our strategic expansion into the Southeast Asian beauty and pharmaceutical market,” said a Dongwha source.
According to market research firm BMI, Vietnam's pharmaceutical retail market is highly fragmented, with more than 50,000 pharmacies, mostly small businesses. This market sales will grow from USD 7.7 billion in 2021 to USD 16.1 billion in 2026.
In the pharmaceutical retail market, there are currently 3 leading chains including Long Chau, Pharmacity, and An Khang, of which the Long Chau chain has reported profits since 2021.
(CafeF)