Still on sugar high
Despite the company’s diversification, roughly 90 per cent of revenue still comes from sugar, leaving earnings vulnerable to global price swings with net margins hovering at just two to three per cent.
In the fiscal year ended June 2025, revenue slipped two per cent to 28.5 trillion dong (S$1.4 billion) as sugar prices softened.
My’s response is structural, aimed squarely at reducing reliance on raw sugar and further expanding into food, beverage, milk, and confectionery processing.
By 2030, she expects sugar-related products to account for only about 40 per cent of revenue. Plant-based beverages could contribute 30 to 40 per cent, with the remainder from higher-value, innovation-driven categories.
A key step was tightening its grip on coconut producer Betrimex, Vietnam’s largest coconut product manufacturer. AgriS’ latest ownership increase lifted its stake to 30 per cent by end-2024, and valued the company at about 8.5 trillion dong (S$416.5 million).
Founded in 1976, Betrimex is known for various coconut drinks that are shipped to about 80 countries globally, including the US and Japan, yielding an annual revenue of more than US$100 million (S$126.41 million).
“If you look at AgriS and at Betrimex, you can already see what comes next for AgriS,” said My. “Stepping out of the sugar comfort zone is no longer an experiment.”
Such moves are hardly unusual in the Dang family’s playbook – or at Thanh Thanh Cong Group (TTC), AgriS’ parent company and the multidisciplinary conglomerate spanning agriculture, real estate, energy, and hospitality.
TTC was founded by My’s parents, who began in 1979 with a business producing ethanol, carbon dioxide, and molasses, laying the foundations for what would become the group.
Expansion gathered pace after the family became involved in Sacombank, where Thanh – My’s father – served as the lender’s chairman during its high-growth years from 1994 to 2012.
The sugar business expanded through a series of mergers and acquisitions (M&A), culminating in the 2017 consolidation of Thanh Thanh Cong Tay Ninh and Bien Hoa Sugar to form AgriS.
Today, AgriS, a locomotive within the TTC empire, oversees a circular agricultural ecosystem spanning nearly 91,000 hectares (ha) of sugarcane and 30,000 ha of coconut plantations in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Australia.
These include 3,200 ha of demonstration farms used to test agronomic and technological solutions.
The heir steps up
Among the four siblings, My has emerged as one of the leading successors of the agricultural business, taking over from her mother as AgriS chairwoman in July 2024 after about two decades in senior roles, including overseas training in finance and management in New Zealand.
She is now steering the group towards an ambitious target of 60 trillion dong (S$2.94 billion) in revenue by 2030 – more than double current levels – and a market capitalisation of US$2.7 billion (S$3.41 billion), triple its present market capitalisation on the Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange.
M&As remain central, but with a sharper lens. In its 2024 to 2025 annual report, AgriS said it plans to pursue food businesses with strong environmental, social and governance (ESG) credentials to build scale and market share, while optimising its portfolio and potentially listing units to enhance liquidity and investor appeal.
“Our M&A strategy now isn’t just a financial or legal exercise. It must create business synergies and enable deeper integration across the upstream-to-downstream value chain,” My added, noting that AgriS is currently reviewing “various open deals”.
One example is the group’s latest deal with Australian agronomic services provider Farmacist, building on cooperation since 2022 and involving acquiring deep agronomic expertise overseas.
By integrating Farmacist’s proprietary data, methodologies, and advisory platforms into AgriOS – AgriS’ digital operating system – AgriS aims to develop end-to-end services combining agronomic advice, inputs, mechanisation, and precision farming solutions.
“AgriOS marks AgriS’ transition from a manufacturing business to a data-driven agricultural ecosystem orchestrator,” said Vietcap’s Tram-Anh.
“In the long run, AgriOS can help AgriS improve operational efficiency, strengthen links with farmers, and create a foundation for access to green finance as well as international trade,” she added.
The larger ambition, My said, is not merely to sell AgriS’ own products but to “build the shelf”: a diversified, data-driven platform that embeds Vietnamese agriculture into global supply chains.
Foundational to that vision is the giant’s agricultural modernisation and digitalisation project through 2030, aimed at building a centralised data system across its farming ecosystems and partner networks to enhance transparency, traceability, and export readiness.
“Vietnam’s agricultural scale is already large enough to become a key player in global supply chains,” My said. “What remains is collective coordination, moving from fragmented efforts towards shared scale and integration.”
