As a wary group of international investors gathered this month in a hotel in Vietnam to listen to a pitch from a local fund manager, the public address system played the theme tune from the film Mission: Impossible.

The organisers said the choice of music was not intentional, but it was appropriate nonetheless. “There are a lot of distressed sellers and not many buyers, it’s not easy,” says Hiroshi Funaki, head of research at LCF Rothschild in London.