Hanoi (VNA) - The market is witnessing a significant number of mergersand acquisitions as large corporations and investment funds quietly acquire realestate businesses and projects in Vietnam.

Recently Nova F&B - an affiliate of NovaGroup whichspecialises in cuisine services in projects developed by Novaland, has beenacquired by a Singapore enterprise via arrangements with VinaCapital.

It is knownthat Nova F&B owns 18 famous brands, including self-developed ones likeDynasty House, Phindeli, Mojo Boutique Coffee, Shri Restaurant & Lounge. Someothers such as Jumbo Seafood, Sushi Tei, Gloria Jean’s Coffees are developedthrough franchise agreements.

The move tookplace at a time when NovaGroup is carrying out a comprehensive restructuringplan. According to the latest announcement, NovaGroup has registered to sell136.4 million NVL shares of Novaland Group to rebalance its investmentportfolio and support the restructuring of other debts and obligations. It cameshortly after the company announced the sale of 14.4 million NVL shares out ofthe total registered units of 69.6 million.

Earlier,Novaland Group swapped shares worth 1 trillion VND (43.4 million USD) in itstwo affiliate companies to Dallas Vietnam Gamma Ltd.

In a recentannouncement, Jones Lang Lasalle (JLL) stated that they have advised on thesale of an investment portfolio consisting of three prominent hotels inSoutheast Asia, including two in Vietnam. The deal valued at 106.1 million USD,marking the first hotel purchase transaction in the region this year.

If the marketconditions continue to be challenging, 23% of enterprises could only sustaintheir operations until the end of the third quarter while 43% of others couldsurvive till the end of this year, according to a survey recentlyreleased by the VietnamAssociation of Realtors (VARS).

Experts heldthat the Vietnamese real estate market remains attractive for domestic andforeign investors. However, the difficult economic situation has prevented themfrom investing in large-scale deals and forced them to focus on small andmedium-scale ones.

Meanwhile, there are only few domestic financially-strongdevelopers amid decreased liquidity and high financial cost. Therefore, bigdeals are expected to be open to foreign investors.

Data from the VARS shows that the number offoreign investors interested in M&A property projects in Vietnam isincreasing sharply, especially those from Singapore, the Republic of Korea,Taiwan (China), Japan and Malaysia. However, the majority of them are on theverification and negotiation processes.

Asnegotiations last one to one and a half years, a significant number of successful deals will emerge at the earliestby the end of 2023 or the beginning of 2024, said an expert from Savills./.