🥖 Wind, IPOs, and German support

Good evening from Ho Chi Minh City,

Welcome back to Bánh Mì Brief! Your weekly slice of Vietnam‘s business buzz.

While the monsoon clouds delivered their usual drama, the news cycle kept pace: Vietnam has just plugged into Southeast Asia’s offshore wind mega-grid, and a hot new stock listing turned heads on the HoSE. If that’s not enough voltage, Frankfurt’s financial architects are drawing up blueprints for Vietnam’s future Wall Street.

Between bond scandals shaking up the credit markets and remittances near record highs, it’s proof (yet again) that Vietnam’s financial headlines are never dull - only turbocharged.

So grab your bánh mì, settle in, and let’s dig into the deals, drama, and data defining Vietnam this week!

Vietnam is gaining momentum in Southeast Asia’s green energy revolution. Malaysia’s Energy Minister confirmed this week that a 2,000 MW offshore wind project linking Vietnam to Malaysia and Singapore will complete its first phase by 2034. A bit of time to go, but here’s the setup: Vietnam generates the juice, a subsea cable shuttles it to Peninsular Malaysia, and 1,300 MW of that gets exported to Singapore via Malaysia’s national grid (with 700 MW staying home for Malaysia’s own use).

How a potential phase two looks like: An overland power highway through Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand - but that’s pending feasibility checks and energy demand projections after 2034. This tri-nation power play isn’t just about kilowatts. It’s positioning Vietnam and Malaysia as Southeast Asia’s renewable middleman and helping Singapore hit its 4 GW clean energy import target by 2035.

Techcom Securities (TCX) made a splash on October 21 with one of Vietnam’s biggest IPO in years, adding to the overall equity markets momentum so far in 2025. The brokerage, which is Techcombank’s digital-first offspring, debuted on HCMC Stock exchange HOSE at VND 46,800 per share, giving it a VND 108 trillion (USD 4.2bn) market cap that immediately crowned it the largest securities firm by value in Vietnam.

First-day trading saw the stock climb 4.6% to VND 48,950 on nearly 14.7 million shares traded, fueled by 2.5x oversubscription (half from foreign funds) during its IPO. TCX operates fully digital and without legacy broker teams via its TCInvest app, which helped it snag the #3 market share on HOSE (7.6%) while keeping profitability consistent even in bear markets.

Parent bank Techcombank’s wealthy retail customers and corporate relationships (think Vingroup, Masan) funnel advisory fees and bond products straight to TCX, while Q3 2025 profit jumped 84.5% YoY as margin lending surged 63.7%. At 22.4x P/E and 2.5x P/B, analysts are calling it a good entry point as Vietnam’s market enters a new growth cycle.

Germany’s Hessen state that is home to Frankfurt, Europe’s financial nerve center, just signaled it is ready to help Vietnam build its own Wall Street. Hessen’s Minister of Science and Research told Vietnam’s Deputy PM this week that the state stands ready to support training, consulting, and investment promotion for Vietnam’s planned international financial centers (IFCs) in Ho Chi Minh City and Da Nang.

Deputy PM Nguyen Hoa Binh had already visited Hessen in March to study Frankfurt’s IFC playbook and attended the World Alliance of International Financial Centers annual meeting there in October. Vietnam’s IFC ambitions target regional financial hub status by 2035 with special policies covering fintech, digital assets, green finance, and carbon credits.

Hessen’s expertise could accelerate Vietnam’s timeline, particularly in regulatory frameworks and talent development via the Vietnamese-German University, which already runs international finance courses taught by German experts. The collaboration also extends to labor, Germany’s demand for healthcare and technical workers aligns perfectly with Vietnam’s workforce capacity.

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See you next week! 🥖