Vietnamese entertainment firm Galaxy Studio is putting its cinema operations up for sale and is looking to exit the business.
The firm is currently in talks with private equity firms to raise US$25 million from the sale, and have the Galaxy Cinema team exit from the business to manage other ventures.
Galaxy Cinema is a brand of Galaxy Studio, a film making and distribution firm which is part of the Thien Ngan (Galaxy Group) chaired by 56-year old businesswoman Dinh Thi Hoa.
Hoa used to work in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) before becoming the chairman of Galaxy Studio and deputy chairman of Thien Viet Securities.
She started Galaxy Group in 1994 as a media and communications services company. It was a decade later, that the company expanded to the movie industry.
It is now the third largest operation in Vietnam with 10 locations across the country, after the two biggest players CGV and Lotte Cinema which has 38 and 29 locations respectively.
In the South, Lotte has a stronger presence than CGV, but in Hanoi, for example, Lotte Chemical is located far from the city center, unlike CGV theatres.
Galaxy Studio was the first private company to enter the film business when the field was opened up by the Vietnamese government in 2003.
Apart from its cinema chain that serves more than 2 million moviegoers annually, the company also operates in film production, news media, with the newspaper Nhip Cau Dau Tu, and produces television content.
Previously, Galaxy Cinema secured an undisclosed funding round from PE firm Vietnam Investment Group based in Ho Chi Minh. The PE firm has also recently funded another low-cost cinema chain Beta Media, along with Hong Kong’s Blue HK Investments.
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