GLP Vietnam Joint Venture Breaks Ground on Haiphong Logistics Complex

SEA Logistic Partners, a joint venture backed by warehouse giant GLP, has broken ground on a set of sheds in the northern Vietnamese port city of Haiphong, marking SLP’s first logistics development in the rapidly industrialising nation and in Southeast Asia.

SLP Park Hai Phong will feature six single-storey warehouses with a building area of 88,810 square metres (955,943 square feet) and a land area of 190,100 square metres. The first phase, to be delivered in the second quarter of 2022, includes three warehouses with a building area of 47,560 square metres and a land area of 100,000 square metres.

The development in Haiphong’s Dinh Vu-Cat Hai Economic Zone is about 120 kilometres (75 miles) east of the capital, Hanoi, and will serve increasing demand for port-related logistics and import-export distribution, Ho Chi Minh City-based SLP said in a press release.

“This groundbreaking represents the beginning of our long-term commitment to the Vietnam market,” said Kent Yang, a founding partner of the joint venture and former China president of GLP. “We launched SLP to create world-class industrial and logistic infrastructure in Southeast Asia and support the region’s economic development. We look forward to working with local partners and the government to contribute to Vietnam’s modern logistic infrastructure.”

Flying Start

Since entering Vietnam in October through its joint venture with Singapore-based GLP, SLP has acquired five development sites with a total land area of nearly 700,000 square metres and expanded its team to more than 20 members.

The partners have declined to reveal financial details of their Vietnam acquisitions, saying only that they aim to invest $1 billion to build a modern logistics real estate platform spanning up to 1.5 million square metres in the country over the next three to four years.

SLP will initially focus on Vietnam’s two largest markets, Greater Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, springboarding off the initial project in Haiphong, the country’s third-largest city and second-largest port (after Saigon).

Yang set up SLP last year with co-founder Chih Cheung, a venture capitalist and board member of Hong Kong consumer goods firm Li & Fung, which delisted from the Hong Kong exchange in 2020 after the family controlling the company teamed up with GLP on a HK$7.2 billion ($930 million) privatisation.

With GLP now managing more than $110 billion in real estate and private equity assets, SLP plans to leverage the logistics giant’s fund management, development and operational expertise and take advantage of its global customer network.

Crowded Field

SLP is launching its first project in Vietnam as the rapidly growing Southeast Asian nation becomes a hotbed of warehouse development. Just two months before the joint venture with GLP launched last year, rival Logos Property revealed its own entry into the market with a $350 million JV alongside an unnamed institutional investor.

Sydney-based Logos in October announced its acquisition of a plot outside of Hanoi for its first distribution centre in the country, aiming to develop a facility with up to 80,000 square metres of warehouse space and an expected asset value of $70 million upon completion.

In May of this year, ESR said it was joining forces with a Warburg Pincus-backed industrial platform to develop and own an industrial park near Ho Chi Minh City, marking the Hong Kong-listed warehouse giant’s first project in Vietnam.

My Phuoc 4 Industrial Park, located north of Vietnam’s largest city in the industrial hub of Binh Duong, will have 240,000 square metres of logistics and light industrial facilities upon completion, ESR said.