In its latest move to expand in Southeast Asia, South Korea’s third-largest conglomerate SK Group is investing US$340 million in a major Vietnamese consumer-retail platform. The deal will give the chaebol a 4.9% stake in The CrownX of Masan Group, bolstering its cooperation with one of Vietnam’s largest conglomerates in online and offline distribution, logistics and financial technology.

This May, The CrownX secured an investment of US$400 million from a consortium led by China’s Alibaba. One month before that, SK spent US$410 million buying a 16.3% stake in retailer VinCommerce from Masan Group.

VinCommerce used to belong to Vietnam’s biggest conglomerate Vingroup, but was sold to Masan in 2019. After that, Masan set up The CrownX as its integrated consumer-retail platform by merging VinCommerce and Masan Consumer Holdings.

SK started its partnership with Masan in 2018 when it bought a 9.5% stake in the Vietnamese group for US$470 million through its Singapore-based SK Southeast Asia Investment. The Korean group set up the unit that year to focus on investing in startups and high-growth projects in Southeast Asian countries, as well as managing the group’s current flagship businesses.

In April 2019, SK announced an investment of up to US$1 billion into Vingroup to hold a 6.1% stake in the multi-business corporation. Vingroup is the parent company of VinFast, the Vietnamese automaker that has been expanding its electric vehicle business at home as well as in Europe and North America.