Vingroup is one of the largest private companies in Vietnam. The founder and chairman, Pham Nhat Vuong, is one of the richest people in Vietnam. He got his start selling instant noodles in Ukraine during the 1990s, and now he’s leading a sprawling conglomerate with interests in real estate, healthcare, education, and automobiles. According to its annual report, Vingroup closed out 2024 with $32 billion in total assets and revenue of $7.3 billion. Net profit for the year was $203 million. And Vingroup is showing no signs of slowing down. In May, Vinpearl, a subsidiary specializing in luxury hotels and resorts, went public. The stock surged 20 percent in one day, triggering an automatic suspension of trading. When trading closed for the day, Vinpearl had a market valuation of nearly $6 billion. The company’s net profit in 2024 was around $96 million. With such a high valuation, investors must have a lot of confidence in Vinpearl’s future growth. Within days, a Vingroup offshoot called VinSpeed made more headlines by announcing a $61 billion proposal to build a high-speed rail line connecting northern and southern Vietnam. This mega-project was officially approved by the National Assembly last year, but VinSpeed raised some eyebrows when it said it could start sooner, finish faster, and deliver the project for less than the $67 billion that was initially approved. Of course, there is a caveat. VinSpeed didn’t even exist until earlier this month. It has never built anything before, let alone a technically complex, capital-intensive 1,500-kilometer high-speed rail line that will form the transportational backbone of the country. We should also probably be mindful of the fact that Vingroup has a history of launching itself into extremely ambitious projects while seemingly hoping for the best. The obvious example would be VinFast, the group’s automaker subsidiary. VinFast has been trying to insert itself into the global electric vehicle race for several years now. It has been burning cash like crazy, marketing its EVs and setting up overseas production facilities to break into new markets. VinFast took the highly unusual step of trying to open an EV factory in the United States in order to gain a foothold in North America. It even listed on the Nasdaq. Anyone could have told you that VinFast was taking a big risk with its North American EV play, and so far, it has not paid off. VinFast has delayed the opening of its American factory until 2028. U.S. safety regulators last year launched a probe of VinFast following a crash in California. The cars have not been a hit overseas. And after rising sharply in the first weeks of trading to an improbable $68 a share, VinFast’s stock crashed and is now trading at under $4. Some of this could maybe be overlooked if VinFast was moving toward profitability, but it’s not. In 2023, the automaker posted a net loss of $2.5 billion. In 2024, losses widened to $3.2 billion. The company reported total EV sales of 97,399 last year, a sharp rise from the previous year and well in excess of their forecast of 80,000. This would seem like a step in the right direction. But the majority of these were sold in Vietnam. VinFast is only selling a few thousand EVs outside of Vietnam, which is a problem given that their entire strategy has been geared around global markets from the start. We also know that in the past, VinFast has looked to boost delivery numbers by selling EVs to companies that are affiliated with Vingroup. It's a remarkable story, turning a Ukrainian instant noodle business into a $30 billion empire. And it would be even more remarkable if that empire expanded into the provision of high-speed rail and global EV dominance. But a more immediate question is, does Vingroup have enough cash to sustain these ambitions while continuing to take huge losses at VinFast? That’s the story I’ll be keeping an eye on over the next few years.