Mekong Capital: Adding Value Through Transformation

The case tells the story of Chris Freund, the co-founder of Mekong Capital, a Vietnam-based private equity firm established in 2001 when the country began its transition to a market-based economic model. Mekong initially focused its investment strategy on small and medium enterprises in the export manufacturing sector. However, over the first five years of the company’s history, the investment strategy shifted to a greater focus on rapidly expanding consumer businesses to take advantage of the broad economic prosperity arising in the Vietnamese marketplace. Where most private capital firms added value through financial engineering or operational expertise, Mekong had taken a different tack, choosing to employ what it called Vision Driven Investing (VDI). At the core of the vision driven approach was on what Mekong and its consulting partner the Vanto Group describe as “transformation.” As Freund explains “Where other PE firms choose to be really good at transactional stuff and deal making, that's not inspiring to us. It's fulfilling to add value to companies and see them empowered. It’s adding value through transformation.” Transformation describes a framework intended to foster high-performance leadership and organizational cultures in investee companies intended to produce breakthrough results. The case presents several examples of the transformational approach and opens opportunities to discuss its efficacy and broader applicability for organizational management and leadership.