Inside the Trump Organization's Slow-Moving Vietnam 'Mega Project' — WSJ

By Patricia Kowsmann and Rebecca Feng

In September last year, Donald Trump and his son Eric sat down in a gold, ornate room at Mar-a-Lago to sign a deal with a Vietnamese development company to build a $1.5 billion golf resort on the other side of the world.

Standing between Trump and Eric in the photo opportunity afterward were Dang Thanh Tam, the developer's chairman, and a 39-year-old Briton named Charles Boyd-Bowman, who has since become the project's head.

Both men were unconventional picks. Dang's company, KinhBac City, specializes in building industrial parks in Vietnam, but hotel projects the company has announced over the years failed to be developed.

For one project — a $5 billion entertainment complex on the Vietnamese coast — it said in 2022 it was joining with the Hyatt brand, which denied involvement in the deal.

Boyd-Bowman is a finance professional with no apparent experience in managing hotel projects, according to his LinkedIn profile. He has been associated with firms in Vietnam whose websites include exaggerated claims about their work.

He was once accused of corporate tax fraud in the U.K. Boyd-Bowman's family company paid the taxes and the case was dropped before reaching trial.

For the Trump project in Vietnam, Boyd-Bowman represented "IDG," part of a consortium selected by the Trump Organization to help finance the resort's construction, KinhBac City said in a press release. It described IDG as a U.S. investment fund.

In reality, the IDG Boyd-Bowman helps run is a small Vietnamese firm that has made only four investments in the past eight years, according to data firm PitchBook. It operates independently from a bigger investment fund, IDG Capital, which is now based in Hong Kong. IDG Capital told The Wall Street Journal it has no involvement in the deal.

"IDG Capital is not an investor in the legal and operational entity involved in the Vietnam golf course development project," it said.

More than a year into the Trump project, there is little sign of activity on the land. During a recent visit, a lot that had been cleared for a groundbreaking ceremony in May was deserted, with plantations around it. Negotiations are under way to provide compensation for farmers to relocate.

Boyd-Bowman told KinhBac City shareholders in late June that the project was on schedule. Dang has said the entire project would take four years, according to KinhBac's website.

KinhBac, which is publicly traded in Vietnam, has around $1 billion in debt and recently suspended dividend payments. An effort in June by KinhBac to raise money by selling shares, to restructure its debt and for working capital unrelated to the Trump project, wasn't fully subscribed. The developer recently got approval from shareholders to borrow, sell assets and issue securities to help fund the Trump project.

The Vietnam golf resort follows other Trump-branded projects around the world in which the Trump Organization picked local partners with limited experience or checkered histories to develop the sites. Many resulted in failure.

Although the Trump Organization has 14 properties outside the U.S. up and running, almost as many international deals announced over the years didn't pan out, according to a Journal tally.

A 2012 plan to build a massive office complex in Rio de Janeiro was derailed after its developer, a Bulgarian company with no experience in building in Brazil, struggled to find investors. The Trump Organization also pulled out of a Rio hotel project in 2016 after the Brazilian firm behind it was embroiled in a corruption case. Projects have also stalled in India.

In Azerbaijan, the Trump Organization partnered in 2014 with a construction company headed by the son of the country's transportation minister at the time. The U.S. Embassy in Azerbaijan called the minister "notoriously corrupt," according to a leaked diplomatic cable published by WikiLeaks. Trump walked away from the project in 2016, when he won the presidential election for his first term.

The son declined to comment through his personal assistant.

For the Trumps, whether the Vietnam resort ultimately gets built may matter little. Outside the U.S., the Trump Organization mostly licenses its brand and earns fees for doing so, leaving others to build and finance the developments, according to announced deals and President Trump's financial disclosures.

The Trump Organization has already received $5 million for brand-licensing rights from a KinhBac subsidiary developing the project, according to Trump's 2024 financial disclosures. He walked away with at least $2.5 million in licensing fees after dropping the Azerbaijan project.

The Trump Organization, KinhBac and its chairman Dang didn't reply to requests for comment. Boyd-Bowman declined to comment about the Trump project or the companies he is involved in.

Big ambitions

The Vietnam resort, described by KinhBac at its groundbreaking as a "mega project," would be one of the biggest in the Trump Organization's portfolio and in Vietnam itself. It is slated to include a five-star hotel, residential villas and 54 holes of golf, covering an area as big as Newark Liberty International Airport.

Vietnamese government officials have vocally supported the project. Vietnam, like other countries, has been negotiating with Trump to avoid higher trade tariffs since he said in April that the U.S. would charge a 46% duty on Vietnamese goods. After talks, Trump announced in July that the U.S. would drop the tariffs to 20%.

KinhBac was an unusual choice to build the resort. It has a track record in Vietnam for building industrial parks, whose tenants include South Korea's LG Group, according to KinhBac's website.

However , KinhBac's forays into luxury real estate haven't been as successful. In 2009, KinhBac took over a Hanoi hotel project from a struggling Japanese investor with plans to create Vietnam's tallest building in the shape of a rice grain. Construction never took off.

In 2022, KinhBac said it had entered into an agreement with two American partners, Hyatt and Sapphire Bay Group, to build the $5 billion entertainment complex on Vietnam's coast east of Hanoi, with a 1,000-room hotel and a marina.

"Hyatt did not sign a [Memorandum of Understanding] with KBC and we are not involved in this development," said a spokesperson for Hyatt, without elaborating.

The Journal couldn't find a company called Sapphire Bay Group fitting the description provided by KinhBac online or in corporate registries. KinhBac said Sapphire Bay Group and Hyatt had spent billions of dollars building and managing complexes around the world.

Dang has also said he entered into a joint venture with Saigontourist, a prominent Vietnamese travel company, to invest in building and owning hotels, without providing details, according to KinhBac's website. Saigontourist didn't respond to requests for comment.

Dang became the developer for the Trump project after a friend of Eric Trump who manages a U.S. investment-banking firm introduced Dang to the Trump Organization last year, according to the friend.

The Trump development is in Hung Yen, a province south of Hanoi. It is the home province of To Lam, who in August last year was appointed general secretary of the ruling Communist Party, becoming Vietnam's most powerful man. Developing the site would potentially bring jobs and other benefits to the general secretary's community, increasing his odds of political support.

The shirtmaker

For Dang, having a Westerner on board could help attract more money , a person familiar with the situation said. Boyd-Bowman, who had known Dang for several years, fit the bill.

The son of a tailor in London, Boyd-Bowman studied finance before working in the family business making shirts and ties. In 2012, the U.K. tax authority accused the company and Boyd-Bowman, as its finance director, of defrauding the state by underpaying taxes.

They immediately paid roughly 90,000 pounds, equivalent to around $118,000 at today's exchange rate, to the state and a court decided not to take the case to trial, Boyd-Bowman told the Journal, adding there was no determination of wrongdoing. The company, which had a factory in Vietnam, was sold. By that time, Boyd-Bowman had moved to the Southeast Asian nation, where he eventually landed a role as chief executive of IDG Capital Vietnam.

A predecessor of IDG Capital Vietnam was once part of U.S.-based IDG, but it was spun off several years ago, after Chinese investors bought the U.S. firm and gave its venture business the umbrella name IDG Capital. IDG Capital Vietnam is now fully owned by local Vietnamese partners, while IDG Capital, which has invested in global giants such as China's Tencent, Shein and Baidu, remains in Hong Kong.

"While IDG Capital and IDG Capital Vietnam share a common heritage and brand identity, IDG Capital Vietnam is a distinct legal entity that has always operated independently," IDG Capital said in a statement.

IDG Capital Vietnam portrays itself as the same firm as the larger IDG Capital in several places on its website. A banner across the top describes it as "a world-leading private equity investment institution that has been developing venture capital business as a pioneer in China." It also says it funded more than half of all Chinese unicorns — startups valued at $1 billion or more — in early rounds, with over 500 successful exits.

The website recently included contact information that was the same as IDG Capital's, but IDG Capital Vietnam changed that portion of the site after the Journal reached out to both companies.

A person familiar with IDG Capital's operations said it has noticed IDG Capital Vietnam misusing its name on several occasions and didn't authorize its use.

Boyd-Bowman also has other roles in Vietnam, including serving as a principal at a business-advisory firm called ACI Capital, according to its website. Its website claims to have more than 6,000 employees in over 80 cities, and corporate partners including Singapore Airlines, Korean Air and Japan's ANA airline. When contacted by the Journal, the airlines said they have no business with the firm.

Robert Hughes, the nonexecutive chairman of ACI Capital who is also a principal at IDG Capital Vietnam, told the Journal that the 6,000 employees referred to on the website "include independent advisors around the world in a network of which ACI Capital is a member." He didn't address the airlines' denials.

Coming together

The Journal wasn't able to determine how Boyd-Bowman and Dang, KinhBac's chairman, met. But in 2022, IDG Capital Vietnam and ACI Capital signed a memorandum of understanding with KinhBac to develop a $2 billion high-tech industrial park in Hung Yen, the same province where Trump's golf resort is being developed.

Hughes said it is a continuing project, but because he is under a nondisclosure agreement, he couldn't comment.

Dang brought Boyd-Bowman into the Trump project, people familiar with the situation said. He was appointed the project's chief executive.

IDG has also been mentioned as a financier of the Trump development in official Vietnamese documents, which referred to it as "IDG Capital."

Paperwork for the project was formally signed in September 2024, when Vietnamese Communist Party secretary To Lam went to speak at the United Nations in New York. Dang and Boyd-Bowman flew to New York around the same time and met with the Trump Organization there before traveling to Mar-a-Lago for the signing.

In a joint press release with the Trump Organization afterward, KinhBac said its subsidiary, Hung Yen Hospitality, would develop the project.

The subsidiary "specializes in creating luxurious hotels, golf courses, and residential properties that reflect Vietnam's rich cultural heritage and vibrant modernity," it added, though Hung Yen Hospitality had only been created in 2024, according to KinhBac in its annual report.

Write to Patricia Kowsmann at patricia.kowsmann@wsj.com and Rebecca Feng at rebecca.feng@wsj.com