Hanoi (VNS/VNA) - Local restaurant chain owner, Golden Gate Joint StockCompany has announced the transfer of 35.95 percent of shares to agroup of three new stakeholders from Singapore.

According toinsiders, this is one of the most important M&A deals so far this year.

ProsperityFood Concepts Pte Ltd, Singapore, registered to sell more than2.5 million shares to divest 32.9 percent of the capital at GoldenGate while chairman of the group Tran VietTrung will also transfer 161,781 shares or  2.12 percentof the stake of the firm for the deal.

Trungpreviously held 337,891 shares or 4.43 percent of chartercapital. After the deal, Trung still has 176,020shares or 2.31 percent of charter capital.

The firm’sDeputy General Director Nguyen Xuan Truong also registered totransfer 69,373 shares or 0.91 percent of the share. He retains 3.08percent of the capital.

The dealbuyers included Seletar Investments Pte Ltd (under the SingaporeGovernment's Temasek Holdings investment fund) which was expected to buynearly 1.54 million common shares, the Seatown Private Capital Master Fund,which would buy 768,431 shares and Periwinkle Pte Ltd, whichwould buy 436,358 shares of the firm.

Alltransactions will be done by agreement method between March 15 and April 13.

Althoughthe deal value has not been announced, at current valuation,investors have spent about 234 million USD (about 5.2 trillion VND) to buythe shares.

Atthe end of 2021, one of the founders of Golden Gate, Dao The Vinhsold 4.86 percent of the firm and still hold 5.115 percent ofcharter capital.

TemasekFund has been involved in investment activities since 2004 with investmentsin VNG, Scommerce, and Vinhomes. Up to now, the fund hasdirectly invested more than 1 billion USD in Vietnam in manydifferent fields.

Foundedin 2005 with the first restaurant in Hanoi, the firm owns more than30 brands with about 400 multi-style restaurants in 40 provinces and cities,serving 18 million customers per year. Some typical restaurant chains of GoldenGate include Sumo BBQ chain, GoGi House, Vuvuzela, and Kichi Kichi.

Atthe end of last year, Golden Gate issued 4,937 three year bonds withpar value of 100 million VND with an interest rate of 11.5 percentper year. All bond buyers are domestic investors./.