The majority of the 11,300 electric vehicles sold by VinFast in the first half of 2023 were bought up by a taxi company that is owned by VinGroup, the same corporation that controls the automaker, filings with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) have revealed.
More than 7,000 of the vehicles that VinFast sold in the first six months of 2023 were purchased by Green and Smart Mobility, a Vietnamese taxi company. All three companies are controlled by Pham Nhat Vuong, VinGroup’s former chairman.
The disclosures paint a complicated picture of the VinFast’s business, but will no doubt be of interest to investors. According to Barron’s, the information was previously available as part of a filing from late July, but was re-published on Tuesday, September 12.
Read: VinFast Shares Tumble, Slashing Value By Over $90 Billion
Since trading on the NASDAQ stock exchange, VinFast’s stock has been highly volatile, becoming the third-most highly valued automaker on earth for a brief time, and prices have fluctuated wildly from highs of $93 per share down to $17.24 earlier this week.
As more information is revealed about the automaker, such as the source of its vehicles’ buyers, and the fact that it is struggling to maintain its presence in the U.S., its value has risen and fallen quickly. One of the biggest factors in the stock’s roller coaster performance has simply been how many shares are available.
Of the 2.3 billion outstanding VinFast shares, 1.2 billion are held by Vingroup. Another 1.1 billion are owned by Vietnam Investment Group and Asian Star, two investment entities owned by Vuong. That effectively means that the industrialist owns 99.7 percent of VinFast stock, leaving the rest subject to big swings in value.
However, Tuesday’s filing with the SEC was made in order to allow another 11 million shares to be sold from existing shareholders, which may help smooth out some of the volatility.
