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Thu Huong Le · · 4 min readAlibaba-backed Ficus’ revenue falls, but operational cash flow improves
With additional analysis from Simon Huang
Ficus Asia Investment, a Vietnam “new retail” group that has drawn significant funding from Alibaba’s eWTP Capital, has seen its revenue decline from US$176 million in 2019 to nearly US$157 million in 2020, according to its filings with Singapore’s Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA).
It also experienced an uptick of 52% in net loss, which increased to US$38 million in 2020 from US$25 million in the previous year.
Ficus told Tech in Asia that the revenue decline was due to the impact of Covid-19. However, the company explained that the increase in net loss was only about US$3 million due to differences in calculating its finance cost.
The group, which is registered in Singapore, holds interests across retail, logistics, and technology ventures in Vietnam.
Many of its subsidiaries such as The Coffee House (a coffee chain) or Juno (a manufacturer of shoes and handbags) relied heavily on offline activities that took a hit due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
An aerial view of Ho Chi Minh City skyline and skyscrapers. The city is currently Vietnam’s Covid-19 epicenter. / Photo credit: 123rf
On the positive side, Tech in Asia’s analysis also showed that Ficus experienced an improvement in its cash flow generated from operations, from negative US$2 million in 2019 to positive US$12 million in 2020.
The divergence between Ficus’ accounting loss and positive cash flow from operations is due to two main adjustments that are added back to the net loss figure. The first is the US$27 million in depreciation and amortization expenses, and the second is the US$26 million in accretion of interest expenses.
Both are non-cash expenditures that do not directly impact Ficus’ cash flow from operations in 2020.
This means that despite the negative income for the year, Ficus’ underlying business operations are actually healthier and generated more cash in 2020 than the year before.
Ficus is chaired by Dinh Anh Huan, who made his fortune from founding Thegioididong (or Mobile World), Vietnam’s leading electronics retailer.
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Revenue for its ecommerce logistics business was hit despite the sector seeing a boost from the pandemic.
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