War babies fight to become billionaires
Business women own 25 per cent of private enterprises in Vietnam
by Abigail Haworth ‘‘ What’s the first designer item you ever bought?’’ I ask 42- year- old Vietnamese t ycoon Le Hong Thuy Tien as we cruise through Ho Chi Minh City in her black Bentley.
It has come to this. I have been asking about her childhood during the Vietnam War ( or the American War, as it’s known here) for the past half an hour. She has politely refused to be drawn. Fawning questions about how filthy rich she is are all I have left.
‘‘ That’s a great question!’’ she exclaims, her perfect eyebrows arching with delight. Sadly, it is only half great. The purchase was so many hundreds of Louis Vuitton tote bags, Bulgari watches and Chanel dresses ago that Thuy Tien can’t remember.
Whatever the item was, we establish that she most likely bought it in Paris in the mid- 1990s. Back then she was a flight attendant for the national carrier Vietnam Airlines. It was such a coveted job at a time when few Vietnamese could travel that she’d chosen it over a fledgling career as a movie starlet.
Today she is the president of a huge trading company, Imex Pan Pacific Group. ‘‘ I run 25 private equity and venture capital firms that distribute luxury brands and invest in local shopping malls,’’ she says in her girlish, slightly Americanised English.
Unlike some of Vietnam’s superrich, who are reluctant to flaunt their success in a country run by an increasingly jittery and repressive communist regime, Thuy Tien is all about the money. Her mission, she adds, is to generate annual revenue of US$ 1 billion ($ 1.2 billion). How close is she? ‘‘ I’m over halfway there.’’
Welcome to modern Vietnam — one side of it, at least — where the pinnacle of achievement is to snare the exclusive rights to distribute Burberry or ( Thuy Tien’s newest acquisition) the franchise for Dunkin’ Donuts. The city formerly known as Saigon was renamed Ho Chi Minh City to celebrate national unity after two decades of civil strife, including the war with America from 1965- 75. Now it is Vietnam’s commercial hub.
Gleaming billboards and five- star hotels signal the country’s status as Asia’s fastest- growing economy after China. Since liberalisation began in the 1980s, founding father Ho’s Communist mantra ‘‘ Success, Success, Great Success’’ has become the creed of hardcore capitalism.