BW and ESR Break Ground on Industrial Facility in Haiphong, Vietnam

Vietnamese developer BW Industrial has broken ground on its 10th project this year, and its third development joint venture with industrial giant ESR, with the two companies joining forces to build a new facility in Haiphong.

Together with its Hong Kong-listed partner, BW is building a 72,000-square metre (775,002 -square foot) light industrial facility in the northern Vietnamese port city, with the project scheduled for completion in July 2024, according to a joint announcement from the companies on Thursday.

ESR, which like BW is a Warburg Pincus portfolio company, pointed to the spec-built project in Haiphong’s Nam Dinh Vu Industrial Park as part of a growing commitment to Vietnam and its neighbours as supply chains evolve globally.

“Our expansion in Vietnam is in line with our focus on scaling up our presence in Southeast Asia – one of the fastest growing regions in the world,” said ESR co-founders and co-CEOs Jeffrey Shen and Stuart Gibson. “The commencement of construction for our project in Nam Dinh Vu marks an important milestone for our business in Vietnam, a market that has been a key beneficiary of the reallocation of manufacturing and supply chain activities to Southeast Asia and one that is poised for robust growth driven by favourable macro-economic factors and supported by a young working population.”

Connected to China

The single-storey project, which has seven-metre clearance heights and floors that can bear up to two tonnes per square metre, is positioned to capitalise on its proximity to Nam Dinh Vu Industrial Park’s internal seaport, as well as highway networks connecting Vietnam’s northern provinces with southern China, including the Hanoi–Haiphong Expressway and Ha Long–Haiphong Expressway.

“The demand for ready-built factories in Haiphong is on the rise because of its geographic proximity to China with direct road connections to China’s southern electronics supply chain cluster; it takes less than one day to truck goods from Haiphong to Shenzhen,” said Lance Li, chief executive of BW Industrial. “Thus, as part of their China Plus One strategy, it is attractive for companies to locate in Nam Dinh Vu.”

The facility is situated within the Dinh Vu–Cat Hai Economic Zone, which offers tax incentives to manufacturers including a four-year exemption and nine-year half-reduction of corporate income tax. The zone is a hub for manufacturers in higher-value industries including automotive, electronics, renewables, electrical equipment, and machinery, which have accounted for an increasing share of Vietnam’s manufacturing base and exports in recent years.

“From 2016 to 2022, the turnover of electronics and computer exports rose by 193 percent and the turnover of phone exports increased by 68 percent. This reflects Vietnam’s move up the value chain as an export-oriented economy for high value-added products,” said John Campbell, head of industrial services at Savills in Vietnam in a November report.

BW and ESR’s latest collaboration comes as leasing demand for Vietnamese industrial properties improves on the back of surging foreign direct investment in the Southeast Asian nation. With manufacturers diversifying their Asian supply chains, industrial properties in the country’s southern region saw an overall occupancy rate of 92 percent in the first half of the year, while occupancy in the north stood at 83 percent, according to Savills.

“Supply chain diversification has been a top priority for many companies this year. In fact, some of our customers are given specific deadlines by which to set up alternative manufacturing locations by their end customers. As a result, we have seen a 75 percent surge in leasing enquiries year-on-year, as many companies are planning to lease rather than build, given the strict time constraints,” said Li.

Foreign investors committed $16.4 billion of new capital into Vietnamese projects in the 11 months through November – a year-on-year increase of 42.4 percent, according to Vietnam’s Ministry of Planning and Investment.

Strategic Backer

Established as a joint venture between Warburg Pincus and Vietnamese state-owned builder Becamex IDC Corp in 2018, BW now has around $2 billion in gross assets under management and bills itself as the country’s leading logistics and industrial developer.

The company has over 8.5 million square metres of land across 48 projects in 11 provinces and 3 million square metres of gross floor area within its completed and under-construction properties, according to company disclosures.

With a roster of close to 270 tenants from over 20 countries, most of which are from the e-commerce, last-mile delivery, or high-tech manufacturing sectors, the builder’s stabilised properties recorded an average occupancy rate of 93 percent as of September, according to company disclosures.

ESR, which took a strategic stake in BW through its January acquisition of a 10.89 percent interest in the company for $207.8 million, exercised its right to subscribe for additional shares of the company in August, investing an additional $122.2 million that raised its ownership to 15.57 percent.

BW had accumulated over $1 billion in equity commitments from investors and partners as of the first quarter of this year.