This year, VinFast Auto, a Vietnamese company that makes all-electric cars, went public in the United States. Their first American product, the VF8 EV SUV, didn’t get excellent reviews, but the stock market has welcomed them with open arms, and people are buying their stock to help the company grow past making cheap cars. In the first half of 2023, VinFast sold more than 11,300 units, even though the value of its stock dropped by 53%. But because of a new report with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Wall Street may think twice about backing the EV brand. Reuters says that VinFast sent out 9,535 vehicles in the second quarter of 2023, taking the total number of cars sent out by the company in the first half of the year to 11,315. That would generally be good news for a new car company, but after reading Barron’s story, investors and stock buyers in VinFast may want to think again. The taxi company Green and Smart Mobility bought more than 7,000 VinFast cars, according to a report with the SEC on Tuesday. At first, when you find out who owns it, it seems like good news. Vingroup, VinFast’s parent company, owns Green and Smart. To put things in perspective, Vingroup owns 1.2 billion of the 2.3 billion shares that VinFast made available, and Vietnam Investment Group owns the other 1.1 billion. Pham Nhat Vuong is the CEO of the company. He was the head of Vingroup and is now the board chair of VinFast, Green, and Smart Mobility. Barron’s got papers from the SEC showing that Vuong also owns about 99.7% of the stock in VinFast and about 51% in Vingroup. This also means that Vingroup bought more than 60% of the 11,315 vehicles shipped. According to the same report, VinFast’s sales to Green and Smart Mobility in the first quarter were worth $6.3 million. This was a small part of the $84 million VinFast made in the first quarter. It’s still being determined if VinFast can live off of sales from third parties outside its business complex. The company is taking orders for the VF8 EV SUV and the VF9 EV SUV, which will be bigger and come out later.
