Vietnam's F88 pawnshop chain sees shares hit ceiling in market debut
With 400 shares traded during the day, its price rose from the opening reference of 634,900 dong to 888,800 dong per share, making it the most expensive stock on the market.
These shares were part of the 8.26 million listed by F88 on UPCoM – an alternative trading platform with lower listing requirements than the country's main bourse, the Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange (HoSE), and often regarded as a stepping stone before companies move to the latter.
Founded in 2013, F88 plans to list on HoSE by 2027 with a valuation of US$1 billion. It is currently the only pawn service company traded on Vietnam's stock exchange.
'F88 clearly sees participation in the capital market not only as a means to enhance transparency and supervision but also as a financial driver to scale the business, improve operational standards, and move closer to the goal of listing on HoSE in the future,' said chairman Phung Anh Tuan, as quoted in the company's press release on Aug 8.
According to its prospectus released on Aug 4, F88 plans a stock issuance between 2025 and Q1 2026 following its UPCoM listing, aiming to raise funds by issuing approximately 101.7 million new shares to existing shareholders at that point.
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The pawnshop operator is backed by several foreign institutional investors, which collectively held over 55 per cent of the company as at June this year.
Among them is Vietnam's oldest private equity firm, Mekong Capital, which owned nearly 37 per cent via two Singapore-based entities, Skydom and Winter Flame.
Serving the underbanked
According to the State Bank of Vietnam, 52 per cent of Vietnamese people – approximately 50 million – held bank accounts as at mid-2022. However, around half of these account holders lacked access to credit from banks.
F88 targets these underbanked and unbanked customers by offering short-term small loans secured by vehicles, registration papers or electronic devices.
Loans secured by motorbikes range from three million to 50 million dong, while those secured by cars range from 23 million to two billion dong.
The monthly interest rate is about 0.9 per cent. Including loan management and asset management fees, the effective annual interest rate ranges from 32 to 55 per cent, according to the company's website.
In addition to vehicle title-lending products, F88 is also expanding into the microinsurance segment and banking agency services.
Through a strategic partnership with Military Commercial Joint Stock Bank (MBBank), F88 is positioning its branches as 'modern financial transaction offices', offering various basic services such as customer identification, cash deposits and withdrawals, money transfers, payment collection and disbursement.
Compared to other alternative finance models in Vietnam, such as peer-to-peer lending and buy-now-pay-later, which still lack a specific regulatory environment, 'pawnshop services operate under a clearer legal framework and are more tightly regulated by authorities,' FiinGroup analysts noted in a report earlier this month.
F88 said it is operating 888 stores across 34 provinces and cities nationwide to date, accounting for about 70 per cent of the total number of chain-affiliated pawnshops in the country.
As at the end of last December, the firm served more than one million customers, with total outstanding pawn loans reaching 4.6 trillion dong.
However, this remained minuscule compared with the estimated 200 trillion dong in total outstanding loans in Vietnam's pawnshop market in 2024, according to FiinGroup data, highlighting significant room for future growth.
While 'next-generation' pawnshop companies such as F88 have steadily expanded their presence in recent years, they captured only about 3.2 per cent of the market in 2024, with the remaining share held by more than 23,700 traditional operators.
Financial outlook
In its most recent credit rating update in April, FiinRatings revised F88's credit upgrade outlook to 'Positive', reflecting expectations of improved capital and liquidity, while maintaining the rating at 'BBB-'.
F88 reported a post-tax loss in 2023 but returned to profitability in 2024 and the first half of 2025, with after-tax earnings of 351.3 billion dong and 254.7 billion dong, respectively.
The group targets a 33.2 per cent increase in its revenue this year to 3.6 trillion dong, with the profit after tax growing by 53.3 per cent to 538.6 billion dong.
It also aims to expand its store count to 1,000 by 2026 and 2,000 by 2030.
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