Singapore, Indonesia, and Vietnam Lead Charge in Southeast Asia, Say Lawyers
Asia Business Law Journal
Singapore, Indonesia, and Vietnam Lead Charge in Southeast Asia, Say Lawyers
Asia Business Law Journal
MoFo Partners Steve Tran and Lip Kian Ang were quoted in a recent article, “Singapore, Indonesia and Vietnam Lead Charge in Southeast Asia, Say Lawyers” published by Asia Business Law Journal.
The article explores how foreign investment has shifted to these three key jurisdictions as a result of growing consumer markets and rising global trade tensions.
Steve explains, “When we look back at the deals that we closed in this region since 2020, a significant number of them involved companies with headquarters or core business operations in Singapore, Indonesia, or Vietnam.”
“We saw a lot of transactions in tech, including fintech, healthtech, and e-commerce. And while technology was unquestionably the most active sector for PE and M&A deals in the region in recent years, logistics, industrials, life sciences, and healthcare were also sectors that featured prominently on our deal flow during the past three years.”
Steve observes that such trends are based on the rapid digitalization in Southeast Asia, with digital adoption reaching 75% of the total population of almost 700 million people in the region, and that number is growing. He adds that Singapore, Indonesia, and Vietnam account for the largest share of the total tech deals during the past two years in terms of deal value and deal count.
Amongst the key drivers are an emerging middle class with growing purchasing power that has translated into demand for better quality healthcare and products.
Lip Kian says, “Businesses like private hospitals, telemedicine, remote consultation, micro-distribution of medicine and medical devices, and also disciplines such as ophthalmology, oncology, paediatrics, maternity, and dental have all attracted interest from investors.”
He adds, “From my observation, deal flow started picking up a couple of years ago and continues unabated today. The life sciences businesses that are receiving investments range from drug discovery, research and development to virology, vaccines and therapeutics.”
“Despite the challenging market conditions, these cutting-edge life sciences businesses tend to have more resilient valuations because, among other reasons, they are longer-term plays using proprietary IP that others do not have.”
Read the full article.