The Apax English Center used to be the “golden egg” of Shark Thuy’s company, but it also plunged this businessman into deep debt. Several startup projects initiated by Shark Thuy also faced numerous difficulties and even had to shut down.
Real estate investment fails, education investments yeild poor returns
The investigative police agency has initiated criminal proceedings and temporarily detained Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Thuy (Shark Thuy), Chairman of EGroup Education Company, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Apax Holdings Investment Corporation – the entity that owns the Apax English English Center system – for the crime of asset misappropriation fraud.
Perhaps the biggest success of Shark Thuy is building the largest chain of English language centers in Vietnam: Apax English and EnglishNow.
For a long time, Apax English and EnglishNow were considered the “golden goose” of Apax Holdings (IBC) – a subsidiary of Egroup Corporation. By the end of 2022, Shark Thuy owned 6.17% of IBC’s capital, while Egroup held nearly 16.8%.
According to introductions, Apax Holdings holds 66.36% of the capital in Apax English Language Company (Apax English/Apax Leaders). At its peak, this system had over 120 centers nationwide under the Apax Leaders brand, spanning more than 30 provinces and cities with around 120,000 students.
Before the Covid-19 pandemic, Apax Holdings experienced a hot growth period, continuously opening centers. Revenue reached 1,000 billion in 2018 and doubled to 2,000 billion in 2020.
However, after Covid-19, Apax English faced many difficulties, drowning in debt, delaying bond payments, teacher salaries, and student tuition fees, while parents demanded payment in droves… The dire situation led to the delisting of Apax Holdings, with leadership fleeing.
Mr. Thuy tried to raise capital
Over the past 2 years, Shark Thuy’s enterprises have restructured, using both real estate and household goods to settle debts for investors. However, Apax Holdings still cannot escape the mud. IBC’s stocks plummeted to “rock-bottom” levels, below 2,000 VND/share, decreasing more than 10 times in a short period.
IBC was demoted from HOSE to the Upcom market, but its stocks were still suspended from trading due to serious violations of information disclosure obligations.
Shark Thuy’s Apax Holdings faced even more challenges when venturing into real estate.
At the annual shareholders’ meeting in 2022, the IBC Board of Directors announced a proposal to issue 83.1 million shares to existing shareholders at a ratio of 1:1 with a face value of 10,000 VND/share, expecting to raise an additional 831 billion VND, increasing the company’s capital to 1,663 billion VND.
With the capital raised, Apax Holdings plans to repay debts, contribute capital to cooperate in real estate projects in Hong Quang Long Hai – Vung Tau tourist area (with an area of over 50,000 m2) while also supplementing working capital.
However, the real estate market has been stagnant and almost frozen since 2022, pushing many businesses into illiquidity.
Failed investment ventures
Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Thuy is a renowned investor from the program Shark Tank Vietnam. After three initial seasons, he became even more prominent, and the name Shark Thuy has been closely associated with this chairman ever since.
Soya Garden - Big mistake
Common denominator of the startups funded by Shark Thuy is that most of them were rejected by other investors, and his philosophy is to ‘dive in when others abandon ship’. Among these, the projects Soya Garden and We Escape stand out…
In Season 1 of Shark Tank Vietnam (early 2018), Shark Thuy committed to investing 15 billion VND (in exchange for 45% equity) to salvage the startup project of the Soya Garden soy milk shop chain.
After receiving investment from Shark Thuy, Soya Garden increased its charter capital from 30 million VND to 20 billion VND in March 2018 and a year later to 100 billion VND. Most of this capital came from the Egroup conglomerate owned by Shark Thuy.
However, after 3 years, from a chain with 50 stores, Soya Garden almost disappeared from both Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. One of the co-founders left Soya Garden.
According to the National Business Registration Portal, Soya Garden Joint Stock Company is currently not operating at its registered address.
Another failed investment deal is We Escape
We Escape originated from a “play” project by 4 math-savvy guys, with its first premise in Ngoc Khanh (Hanoi) in 2015. This startup became more known when it successfully raised 5 billion VND in exchange for 36% from Shark Thuy on Shark Tank Vietnam in 2018.
However, in reality, Shark Thuy invested six times the commitment, spending 30 billion VND to own 70% of the shares, with the remaining 30% owned by the founders of this business model.
With the support of Shark Thuy, by 2021, this startup had up to 8 locations, officially becoming the largest Escape Game system in Vietnam.
But after 2 years of struggling with the pandemic, in early 2022, this startup announced the closure of its entire system. By March 2023, the We Escape fan page unexpectedly reappeared under the new name Genesis Escape.
Another project Shark Thuy invested in is Umbala. This is a pioneering application for trending video shooting and sharing created by Vietnamese youth earlier than TikTok.
In 2018, Shark Thuy and Shark Vuong agreed to invest 260,000 USD (nearly 6 billion VND at that time’s exchange rate) for 15% of the shares in Umbala.
However, due to capital shortages compared to foreign competitors, this startup could not advance far in the market. In fact, even domestically, this application struggled when competing with TikTok. Some time later, Umbala rebranded to Umbala Network, aiming to apply blockchain technology to e-commerce.
Currently, information about Umbala Network cannot be found on social media or on websites.
Shark Thuy also agreed to invest 3 billion VND in exchange for 80% of the shares of a vegan restaurant startup founded by Lam Thi Hoai. But by November 2021, the Pema vegan restaurant in Yen Bai City announced its closure. The Facebook page of Pema vegan restaurant in Hanoi is also no longer regularly updated.
Additionally, Shark Thuy had many other high-profile investment deals such as the Volunteer For Education volunteer tourism model; Talks Café 100% English café combined with English teaching; multi-purpose wheelchair production project for people with disabilities…
Many million USD of Shark Thuy’s company were pumped into these projects, but most did not yield results. Not a few startups invested by Shark Thuy reluctantly withdrew from the market.
Content from BĐS Thủ Đô.