Modern retail penetration is growing rapidly in ASEAN led by urbanisation, rising incomes, growing middle class population, increased consumer spending, improved lifestyle and evolving consumer habits.

M&A and investments in the logistics sector in Asia, and particularly in ASEAN, have steadily been on the rise with valuations which are often at a premium to prevailing market multiples. Consolidation is definitely the buzzword in the global logistics industry.

Stock markets often belie the facts about the true picture of the underlying economy – while Developed Market (DM) stock markets have outperformed their Emerging Market (EM) counterparts every year since 2011 (except YTD 2015), the underlying economies have followed different trajectories.

Our M&A Advisory team followed up on the optimism on Vietnam shared in the June 2015 newsletter by spending a week in Ho Chi Minh City last month speaking to various local stakeholders to corroborate our thesis.

Family businesses are the bedrock of emerging markets economies accounting for approx. 60% of private-sector companies having revenues of USD 1 billion or more.

Asia accounts for 60% of the world’s population but almost 1.7 billion or 40% of that population lives on USD 2 or less a day with the majority residing in rural areas.