Vietnam's leading food firm KIDO Corporation (KDC) will increase the foreign ownership limit from the current 49 to 100 per cent to enhance operations, and to gain capital for expansion investments as well as mergers and acquisitions.

The information was released after the annual shareholders’ meeting of KDC on June 16. Regarding the treasury share sales plan, Tran Le Nguyen, CEO of KDC, said, “KDC now has strong financial capacity to carry out its investment plans in 2017, so we do not have to sell treasury shares. However, if we sold more than 50 million treasury shares, KDC could earn VND2.5 trillion ($110 million). In this case, we may share this amount with shareholders in the form of cash bonus, just like when KDC sold its confectionery business.”
In August, KDC will join with a Thai partner to make high-quality chili sauce, taking the first step in the sauce sector and continuing to extend to the packaged food sector.
Besides, KDC will push cooperation with big foreign partners in the region like Indonesia to shorten product launch times and distribute banded products on the market.
The year 2017 is marked as a milestone as KDC officially entered the food processing industry by buying 50 per cent of Dabaco Group, which now owns a factory that slaughters 25,000 animals a day.
KDC can now call the shots on Dabaco’s products, brand name, and distribution channel. In the first step, Dabaco Group will use KDC’s distribution and frozen systems for its products.
In 2016, KDC achieved a revenue of VND2.2 trillion ($97 million), 31.25 per cent lower than the previous year, and profit before tax of VND1.5 trillion ($66 million), down 78 per cent. Ice-cream and yoghurt were in the lead with 35 per cent market share, contributing 43.5 per cent of the company’s total revenue and achieving 30 per cent growth rate last year.
At the end of 2016, KDC also increased its holding in Tuong An Company (TAC) to 65 per cent.
In 2017, KDC targets a total revenue of VND7.7 trillion ($339.6 million), VND490 billion ($21.6 million) in profit before tax, including the estimated revenue of VND5.8 trillion ($255.8 million) from packaged food, and VND240 billion ($10 million) in profit. The frozen food business set the target of VND1.9 trillion ($83 million) in revenue and VND250 billion ($11 million) in profit.