US real estate developers target EB-5 capital from Việt Nam

HÀ NỘI — US real estate developers are turning to a new, fast-growing source of cheap capital known as EB-5 from Việt Nam, reported the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday.

The Southeast Asian country is rapidly gaining on China as one of the biggest participants in the foreign-investment initiative. The programme offers green cards in return for investing in job-creating US businesses or real-estate projects.

About 20 per cent of EB-5 investment in American real estate now comes from Việt Nam, putting it just behind India’s 25 per cent and China’s 30 per cent, according to the journal.

Vietnamese nationals received 693 EB-5 visas last fiscal year, an increase from 471 in 2017, it said.

Developers advertising their projects to Vietnamese investors including Related Companies, which is looking for US$380 million for the third phase of its Hudson Yards development, and Extell Development, which is seeking investors for its Times Square Hard Rock Hotel project.

The journal quoted immigration attorney Phương Lee as saying: “In the past, any large-scale capital raise, anything over $50 million or $100 million, particularly in New York, you had to go to China. But most of the big New York real estate developers who were in China before are certainly all in Việt Nam now.”

However, despite Việt Nam’s growing interest in EB-5, overall investment volume has dropped significantly, and the country’s estimated wait time of seven years for a visa could eventually become a problem, it noted. — VNS