This has increased its ownership in Vietnam’s largest dairy producer to 10 percent.

According to the group’s announcement on November 17, Platinum Victory Pte Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of JC&C, has made further on-market purchases to acquire an additional of nearly 16.5 million shares from Vinamilk, representing approximately 1.1 percent of the issued share capital of Vinamilk.

Following the acquisition, the JC&C group now has an aggregate interest in nearly 145.6 million Vinamilk shares, representing approximately 10.0 percent of Vinamilk’s issued share capital.

On November 10, JC&C beat other bidders to purchase a 3.33 percent stake in Vinamilk from the State Capital Investment Corporation (SCIC) at an open auction on the HCM Stock Exchange. It also acquired another 2.2 percent stake via order-matching transactions to bring its holding to up to 5.53 percent.

Currently, JC&C is the third-largest shareholder of Vinamilk, after SCIC with 36 percent and Singapore’s food and beverages company Fraser&Neave, with 18.74 percent.

JC&C, a subsidiary of Jardine Matheson, has been present in Vietnam for over a decade. It now owns a 25.1 percent stake in automobile producer, Thaco, and nearly 23 percent in the Refrigeration Electrical Engineering Corporation (REE Corp).