FECON’s Chairman: To pass through the crisis, “Luck” is the most important factor

Success = Luck + Right Business Choice Helping the company overcome the storm of economic crisis during 2008-2010 with the steady revenue growth rate over 35%, the Board Chairman of FECON – Pham Viet Khoa supposed that : The main factors to pass all the difficulties are luck and right business choice. “Our business is quite advanced technique and necessary for all types of projects such as civil construction, industrial construction, infrastructure construction and irrigation works. For that reason, we know that there are a lot of works for us to do if we do them well.” Foundation engineering & underground construction, “the interference between Buildings & the Earth” as Mr.Khoa said, are the particular fields of  the construction industry that requires all the engineers a deep understanding of both building structure and soil mechanics. * In the construction industry, Turnover rate is quite high.  A recent survey showed that 73% respondents considered that a good company is a high salary paying one. With its distinct business field, does FECON pay high salary to retain the talents? Salary is the necessary factor while company culture is the sufficient factor. Vietnamese companies cannot compare with foreign ones about the salary. Whereas, all the engineers from FECON are good at English, have both technique standard and competences to work in the international working environment. Thus, it is very hard for FECON to keep the talents if the engineers only care about the salary but not see in the long future. In terms of income, although FECON’s salary is lower than that of foreign companies in the same field, we believe that the income of all the employees will increase and ensure their long-term career development together with the growth of our company. Beside the production activities and R&D, building corporate culture has become one of the most important missions of FECON. In such a construction company, especially in foundation engineering & underground construction field where the works are extremely hard, in order to keep the talented people, we need to have spiritual engagement to create an environment for the employees to chase their passion, express themselves & contribute to the society. * More than 10 years as the Chairman of FECON, which stage have you seen as the most difficult one? The most difficult stage to businessman, I think, is the world & Vietnamese economic crisis one, from 2008 to 2011, when a series of real estate projects, industrial zones, factories…were postponed or even cancelled. In that stage, FECON experienced such a very hard time to do business. Luckily, FECON had some intimate partners, large bidders from Japan, who helped us to participate in many Japanese FDI projects in Vietnam, so we could maintain the cash flow, business…. * Looking back to that period, what are the main factors to help FECON overcome the difficulties in your opinion? I think the most important factor is Luck. One more thing is our business choice, FECON has been consistent to specialize in our main field, neither expanding nor spreading. * In 2014, although the revenue & net profit was seen to increase, the numbers only reached 90, 3% respectively & 91% planned. There were some fears that FECON will get the difficulties in achieving the revenue target of VNĐ 1, 800 billion in 2015… FECON is confident to achieve the set target. Not 100% sure at this time but with all the awarded projects as well as approaching ones, we believe that we can reach our 2015 business goal. Up to now, the total value of signed contracts has been 2,040 billion VNĐ with a series of projects to be completed such as Thai Binh 1 Thermal Power Plant (over 200 billion VNĐ), Samsung Bac Ninh (over 80 billion VNĐ), Long Phu 1 Thermal Power Plant – piling works (over 70 billion VNĐ) & Dai Quang Minh Soil improvement project (over 180 billion VNĐ). Moreover, we are also approaching some projects in HCMC with hopes of good results. * FECON has set the goal to become the leading corporate group in infrastructure in 2020. Is it out of reach when only 5 years left? Targets are always set more highly than reality to be reached. It must be located at the boundary between the impossible and possible things to motivate ourselves. In order to achieve our goal, FECON has been implementing a number of strategic actions as follows: The first is sales growth: To increase sales, FECON has invested heavily in machinery, equipment for the core service and carried out some M&A at the same time to enrich sources for the system, ready for great opportunities. The second is restructuring financial foundation: In order to participate in the bidding and implement some major projects, the capital from the issue of convertible bonds will be used for the investment, asset growth as well as cash flow to strengthen financial capacity. Besides, FECON has strongly urged foreign partners to invest in projects in Vietnam and then become the main investor and local bidder to have the abundant financial resources. The third is constantly improving management capacity In the period of 2014-2015, FECON has had several actions to consolidate the system and enhance the management capacity. We will have been continuing to carry out for the next few years. * In the infrastructure field, there are a number of big companies like Cienco, Tasco, CII…So, what are the advantages of FECON while doing the same business? Our prominent advantage is able to supply optimized & overall solutions for the projects, especially for ground & foundation engineering ones, which help the project to save money, ensure the quality and shorten the progress, thereby increasing its efficiency. Each project will need its own specific alternative solutions especially ground & foundation engineering projects that have high safety factor (FS) in design, but FECON can help our customers to save money up to 30% thanks to our understanding of soil mechanics, ground & foundation engineering. With transport infrastructure projects, whose cost of ground & foundation engineering often accounts for 40-60% construction value, saving money up to 30% is equivalent to 15-20% savings for the total cost of the project.  * FECON has just signed with Vault Investment Fund (UAE) on strategic co-operation about investment of an entertainment sports park complex spanning 175ha at Phu Quoc Island (Kien Giang province). Does this project contribute to the 2020 roadmap goal? This project has been in research stage, not investment. If the authorities & investors approve, FECON will invest in. It only plays a part for the roadmap to the goal 2020. We have planned to be a local investor for foreign ones with some projects relating to real estate as well as transport infrastructure. Up to now, we have achieved some remarkable success in a number of projects.