Success Story
"Unicons is an integral part, the indispensable hand of Coteccons Group, an important factor to guarantee successes and exploits of Coteccons Group," Chairman of Unicons Members Council
On July 14, 2006, Unicons received the business registration certificate No. 4103005020 for Uy Nam Investment Construction Joint Stock Company with the charter capital of VND 18 billion. On July 21, 2006, the General Meeting of Shareholders for establishment of Uy Nam Investment Construction Joint Stock Company (Unicons) was held. Unicons was officially established with the strategic objective of expanding the market and diversifying business activities of Coteccons Group.
The company based its head office on 8th floor, 19 Ho Tung Mau, District 1, Ho Chi Minh City. The office had is small but full of love and spirit of solidarity. Just a short time later, in 2008-2009, the world economy experienced a severe crisis, foreign direct investment in Vietnam fell sharply and many domestic construction firms were on the brink of bankruptcy. But with the wisdom, agreement, and determination of its leaders, Unicons and its officers and staff members gradually recovered from the crisis and have gained achievements as we can see today.
Our consistent business philosophy: “Subsequent projects are always better than previous projects” brought safe and high quality products and services that were implemented on schedule with reasonable prices, and most importantly, they have been beyond customers expectations. In the period of 2006-2008, Unicons co-operated closely with Coteccons in projects of hotels and resorts in Da Nang, other Central provinces/cities and projects in Phu My Hung Urban Area (HCMC).
Typical projects developed by such cooperation in this period include: BS2 building, BMW showroom, Japanese school (HCMC), Indochina Riverside Building, The Nam Hai Hoi An resort (Da Nang), some high-rise items in Phu My Hung urban area, etc.
With the modest initial charter capital of VND 18 billion, after three years, the company had more than 100 engineers and architects, including more than 20 M&E engineers and 20 managers. The growth rate in this period was very high and stable with revenue reaching VND 45 billion (2006), VND 309 billion (2007) and VND 534 billion (2008). The trademark of Unicons – Coteccons Group started to create a good impression on the market and build a good reputation among the clients.
With the establishment of the M&E division, in the first three years, Unicons expanded its ability to undertake construction and M&E packages to add value to customers and consultants as there was only one management information system during construction as well as during the warranty period.
2009 marked the founding of the M&E division by Unicons and many remarkable achievements in both segments: high-end industrial buildings and high-rise buildings.
Remarkably, in this period, Unicons constructed the complex basement at the Golden Square project (Da Nang) and GE engine plant (Hai Phong). The complexity and difficulty in executing these two projects created a great pressure in terms of the quality and progress on Unicons team but it was a valuable opportunity where each engineer was challenged and was able to learn and grow faster.
Another memorable project in this period was the chain of three Sabeco Beer Factories in Ho Chi Minh City, Quang Ngai and Nghe An, each of which reached VND 180-300 billion – huge contract value at that time. There were also other large-scale projects such as UNIS International School and Uni-President factory.
In 2010, Unicons constructed many luxury hotels and resorts in Central Vietnam, such as Fusion Maia Resort, Hoang Tra Hotel & Resort, Ocean View Condominiums, The Sun Villas, etc.
Hotel-resort structure and finishing work construction always requires the Unicons engineers to work harder to satisfy expectations of Clients. These projects can be considered as initial “training courses” on finishing work in more difficult projects in the future.
In December 2010, Unicons moved its headquarters from 9-19 Ho Tung Mau, District 1, Ho Chi Minh City to Coteccons Tower at 236/6 Dien Bien Phu, Ward 17, Binh Thanh District, Ho Chi Minh City. Its more modern and spacious new office brought the company’s image to the next level and created conditions for meeting and working with partners and developing projects.
In 2011, Unicons signed the construction contract of PepsiCo Q512 plant in Bac Ninh with the total value of VND 442 billion, which was Unicons’s highest-value industrial factory at that time. This was also the first work of the next ones deployed in Dong Nai such as PepsiCo Q413 and Q314.
Hotel – resort projects such as Novotel Danang Hotel, Intercontinental Sun Peninsula Resort, Ba Na French village, etc. were also prominent in this year and contributed considerably to the company’s revenue.
In 2012, Unicons made great improvements in its capacity in construction of high-end industrial factories. Following the success of the GE project in 2009, Unicons continued to win bid for a number of large-scale plants, the remarkable projects of which included three consecutive projects for PepsiCo Vietnam in Bac Ninh and Dong Nai, the project of expanding Coca-Cola plant in Thu Duc, HCMC, Marigot jewelry manufacturing factory, TBC-Ball factory, Texhong Quang Ninh factory, Vinasoy Bac Ninh factory, etc. The important high-rise buildings in 2012 comprised T18 Times City Apartment, Ecopark Palm Forest, Hoa Sen University, C15B Phu My Hung apartment building, Vincom Center A, etc.
The memorable marking of 2012 was the fact that Unicons was first ranked 410 among 500 largest enterprises in Vietnam, ranking 7th in the list of the largest private construction companies in Vietnam.
In 2013, Unicons continued to affirm its position in the construction market when it reached VND 2,276 billion in revenue and over VND 57 billion in profit. With that achievement, the company jumped to 186th position among the top 500 largest private enterprises in Vietnam in 2013.
Nearly 20 construction projects were successfully implemented by Unicons, especially, the company expanded its operation to Laos (Mascot project) and Cambodia (Laurelton plant project). After 8 years of operation, Unicons has affirmed its brand name in Vietnam market and has taken its first steps in the Southeast Asia market. In the same year, Coteccons also raised its share ownership rate in Unicons to 51%.
Many high-quality high-rise building projects were implemented by Unicons in 2012-2013, including VivoCity (in cooperation with Coteccons), S8-S16, C15B Star Hill, Novotel Hotel, Ecopark Apartment, Nhan Phu Apartment, etc. These projects with the increasing number of stories and increasingly high construction requirements were foundation for Unicons’s strong growth in 2014 with larger projects.
2014 marked the breakthrough of Unicons in all aspects. Being approved to construct T1 Tower of Masteri Thao Dien project by Coteccons, Coteccons’ largest EPC work at that time, Unicons once again affirmed its capacity and prestige. Until now, Masteri Thao Dien has been a project with the “three best things” of Coteccons with total investment of VND 4,400 billion in 2014: the project with the shortest construction period (30 months from survey, design to finishing & handover); high-rise project with the largest floor area (43 stories with floor area of more than 370,000m2) and project with the highest value (over VND 3,000 billion).
In the construction field of industrial factories, Unicons began winning many consecutive industrial projects invested by Chinese clients such as Huafu (Long An), Gain Lucky (Tay Ninh), Texhong (Quang Ninh)…
This year was also the start of a series of Design and Build projects implemented by the Coteccons Group. With its advantages in technology, financial management and human resources, Coteccons defined its number one position in the game with “high costs” – designing and executing large-scale projects at the same time. In the world, only leading construction groups with state-of-the-art technology and highly effective management capacity can do the same thing.
In 2015, Unicons executed many high-rise projects in cooperation with Coteccons, targeting high-end commercial high-rise buildings of leading real estate companies such as Vingroup, Dai Quang Minh and TNR Holdings. In addition, Unicons began defining its position with a series of first EPC projects worth over VND 1,000 billion.
2015 witnessed an important milestone in the history of Unicons when its parent company, Coteccons, announced the BOD’s resolution about the registration of share issuance to swap shares of Unicons. Accordingly, Coteccons issued over 3.6 million additional swapped shares to Unicons’ shareholders in exchange for the entire outstanding shares in circulation of Unicons except the shares held by Coteccons at a swap rate of 1: 0.745. This share swap was approved by the 2015 Annual General Meeting of Shareholders. After the successful swap, Coteccons officially became the sole owner with 100% charter capital in Unicons.
In May 2016, Unicons officially changed its operating model from a Joint Stock Company to a Limited Liability Company and was renamed Unicons Investment Construction Limited Company. The logo and brand identity system on this occasion was also improved to better fit the new situation. With this milestone, Unicons was officially “merged” with Coteccons. All policies on management, personnel and welfare regime are fully compatible with Coteccons’ professionalism.
The image of tower cranes attached with Coteccons – Unicons logo has become familiar in big cities like Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and Da Nang. Most of the mega real estate projects of large corporations such as VinGroup, TNR, Tan Hoang Minh, Dai Quang Minh, etc. are all assigned to Coteccons Group as the general contractor.
With the confidence of a large number of clients, it can be said that Coteccons “has so many projects for construction” and the overall business results of the Group achieved a galloping growth during the period 2014-2016 when it won bid for a large number of Design & Build Projects, bringing prestige and strong cash flow to the group.
In 2017, Unicons successfully completed many financial targets of the year such as high revenue growth (of which revenue from M&E exceeded 30% of the plan), achieving profit targets and well recovering debts.
2017 is also a successful year of Unicons in terms of brand enhancement while maintaining its prestige with many traditional customers (VinGroup, SunGroup, Dai Quang Minh, Techcombank …), expanding mutual relationships with many new customers (Ha Do Group, Cityland …). Especially, Unicons has won many FDI projects from foreign Investors (Accredo, Tetra Pak …) and approached many new projects with the scale of more than 1,000 billion VND.
In 2018, under the strong leadership of Unicons Board of Directors and the efforts of all staff, Unicons achieved many goals in terms of revenue, profit and debt recovery. Project management objectives in terms of quality, progress, customer relations, succession training are also focused and completed well, creating a premise for development in the following years.
