Phạm Nhật Vượng (born 5 August 1968) is a Vietnamese property developer and Vietnam's first
billionaire
A billionaire is a person with a net worth of at least one billion (1,000,000,000, i.e., a thousand million) units of a given currency, usually of a major currency such as the United States dollar, euro, or pound sterling. The American busin ...
. He is the founder and chairman of
Vingroup
Vingroup Joint Stock Company (), is the largest conglomerate of Vietnam, focusing on technology, industry, real estate development, retail, and services ranging from healthcare to hospitality. The company was founded by property developer and en ...
.
Personal life
Vượng was born on 5 August 1968 in
Hanoi
Hanoi or Ha Noi ( or ; vi, Hà Nội ) is the capital and second-largest city of Vietnam. It covers an area of . It consists of 12 urban districts, one district-leveled town and 17 rural districts. Located within the Red River Delta, Hanoi is ...
; his paternal family has origins in Hà Tĩnh in north-central Vietnam. His father served in the Vietnamese Army's air defence division, and his mother had a tea shop, which left the family with a very meager income. He grew up in Hanoi and graduated from Kim Lien High School in 1985.
In 1987, he entered
Hanoi University of Mining and Geology
Hanoi University of Mining and Geology (HUMG, vi, Trường Đại học Mỏ - Địa chất Hà Nội) is a university in the Bắc Từ Liêm district of Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam. It trains technical experts in exploration and exploitat ...
and was sent to
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...
to study in the Moscow Geological Prospecting Institute, for which he was able to obtain a scholarship thanks to his profound mathematical aptitude. He graduated from this university in 1992.
After graduating, he married Phạm Trang Hương, whom he had known since high school, and moved to
Kharkiv
Kharkiv ( uk, wikt:Харків, Ха́рків, ), also known as Kharkov (russian: Харькoв, ), is the second-largest List of cities in Ukraine, city and List of hromadas of Ukraine, municipality in Ukraine.
The couple has 3 children: Phạm Nhật Quân Anh - current Deputy General Director of Vinpearl Company Limited, Phạm Nhật Minh Hoàng and Phạm Nhật Minh Anh.
Career as an entrepreneur
In the 1990s, while living in Ukraine, Pham Nhat Vuong started an instant noodle restaurant business using money borrowed from friends and family. Soon he also started producing and selling
instant noodle
Instant noodles, or instant ramen, is a type of food consisting of noodles sold in a precooked and dried block with flavoring powder and/or seasoning oil. The dried noodle block was originally created by flash frying cooked noodles, and this is ...
s.
In 1993, he founded Technocom, which would become a market leader in dehydrated culinary products in Ukraine. Vượng sold Technocom to
Nestlé
Nestlé S.A. (; ; ) is a Switzerland, Swiss multinational food and drink processing conglomerate corporation headquartered in Vevey, Vaud, Switzerland. It is the largest publicly held food company in the world, measured by revenue and other me ...
for $150 million in 2009, before returning to Vietnam.
Vượng's first projects in Vietnam were Vinpearl Resort Nha Trang (opened in 2003) and Vincom City Towers (later renamed Vincom Ba Trieu) in central Hanoi (opened in 2004). Vincom went public in 2007. It merged with Vinpearl, Vượng's luxury resort business, to form VinGroup in 2007. VinGroup is headquartered in its Riverside township in
Long Biên District
Long may refer to:
Measurement
* Long, characteristic of something of great duration
* Long, characteristic of something of great length
* Longitude (abbreviation: long.), a geographic coordinate
* Longa (music), note value in early music mens ...
in Eastern
Hanoi
Hanoi or Ha Noi ( or ; vi, Hà Nội ) is the capital and second-largest city of Vietnam. It covers an area of . It consists of 12 urban districts, one district-leveled town and 17 rural districts. Located within the Red River Delta, Hanoi is ...
.
In 2015, Vượng was listed as the richest person in Vietnam with assets totaling VNĐ 24.3 trillion (approximately
US$
The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...
1.1 trillion), which more than quadrupled those of the second richest person, Trần Đình Long of Hanoi Hoa Phat Corporation. His wife, Phạm Thu Hương and sister-in-law Phạm Thúy Hằng ranked third and fifth respectively. As of 12 April 2021, ''
Forbes
''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also re ...