Shadows of real estate “giants” at banks
At the seminar “Determining investment opportunities in securities in 2022” organized by Investor Magazine recently, Dr. Le Xuan Nghia, Director of the Institute of Business Research and Development, made a remarkable remark. Note when indicating the extent of banks’ lending to backyard companies Real estate is at an all-time high.
According to this expert, the bank’s credit line is focusing on “front yards, back yards”, mainly real estate businesses. The number of banks lending to “backyard” corporations is alarmingly large and unprecedented in Vietnam’s history. However, the officially announced figures are still correct according to the Law on Credit Institutions and this is very worrying.
The issue of backyard lending was also raised by shareholders to question VIB’s leadership – the first bank in the banking industry to hold the 2022 AGM. Answering this question, VIB Deputy General Director An Thanh Son affirmed that the bank absolutely do not lend to businesses related to members of the board of directors, executive board. Therefore, the management report does not have the above content. Mr. Son affirmed: “VIB is one of the few banks assessed by the State Bank that does not have a “front yard, back yard” loan at all. At the same time, he emphasized that this is closely monitored by regulatory agencies.
In fact, the relationship between banks and related companies and insiders is not a recent issue. Before that, the market also witnessed many cases of banks lending to backyards causing serious consequences such as Sacombank with Mr. Tram Be, Oceanbank with Mr. Ha Van Tham or ACB with “elect” Kien.
In recent reports, the State Bank has regularly affirmed that cross-ownership, cross-investment in the system of credit institutions has been effectively handled, the status of major shareholders/groups of shareholders, manipulate and dominate the controlled bank; Direct share ownership between banks and enterprises also decreased sharply.
However, concerns about the situation of bank capital flowing into the backyards of businesses related to bank leaders began to “wave” again when real estate “giants” increased in popularity. recently enjoyed at the bank.
Although currently, Thaiholdings and Mr. Thuy’s family have withdrawn all shares in LienVietPostBank, but “elected” Thuy still holds the position of Vice Chairman of the Bank’s Board of Directors and is a major shareholder, holding nearly 25% of shares in the bank. Thaiholdings.
Previously, NCB also announced the appointment of Ms. Bui Thi Thanh Huong as Chairman of the Board of Directors to replace Mr. Nguyen Tien Dung in July 2021. Notably, Ms. Huong was appointed to the position of head of NCB just 1 month after resigning from the position of General Director of Sun Group – a large real estate group in Vietnam.
Before the chair of NCB changed hands, the stock market recorded a series of “terrible” put-through transactions in NCB shares. This raises questions about whether the shareholder structure of this bank has been changed with the participation of Sun Group.
The scenario at NCB is quite similar to Kienlongbank when the chair of this bank’s Board of Directors changed hands after a period of liquidity and stock price spike.
Specifically, Kienlongbank’s KLB stock also witnessed a series of “terrible” put-through transactions in the fourth quarter of 2020 with more than 209 million shares changing hands between investors, equivalent to 34% of outstanding shares. onion.
Right after that, at the beginning of February 2021, Kienlongbank held an extraordinary general meeting of shareholders to put Ms. Tran Thi Thu Hang – Former CEO of Sunshine Group – on the Board of Directors and then took over the position of President of the bank. .
Or most recently, the appearance of the “shadow” of Bamboo Capital at Eximbank when this group of shareholders successfully brought Mr. Nguyen Thanh Hung – Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors and Deputy General Director of Bamboo Capital – to the Board of Directors. and Mr. Ngo Tony as Head of Supervisory Board.
In addition to the couples mentioned above, the close relationship between the bank and the real estate companies must also include Techcombank and Masterise Group, SeABank and BRG Group; HDBank and Sovico Group, or VPBank and MIK Group; SHB and T&T;…
Although the close relationship between the bank and related businesses and insiders causes many concerns. However, experts also said that the nature of this relationship is not necessarily bad, but sometimes also helps the bank’s capital flow to circulate and use more effectively. It is important that the granting of bank credit to the backyard company must comply with the provisions of the law.
Besides, not all business owners participate in buying banks just to support loans. When acquiring TPBank, Mr. Do Minh Phu, Chairman of TPBank’s Board of Directors, Chairman of the Board of Directors, General Director of Doji Group, once affirmed to the press that Doji could contribute thousands of billions of dong to invest in TPBank, but did not expect it. borrow 100 million dong from this bank.
“Many people think that shareholders invest in banks to make it easier to borrow money. But if you carefully study the Law on Credit Institutions, you will find that when shareholders join the Board of Directors, these shareholders are not allowed to borrow money, not even guaranteed, not support credit for subsidiaries. Therefore, we do not expect TPBank to be Doji’s financial gateway. We have seen the gloomy picture of cross-investing today and we stick to the principle: avoid the double-risk effect.“, said Mr. Phu.
According to Mr. Phu, in Vietnam, it is impossible for shareholders to dominate the bank (accounting for more than 51% of the shares) because according to the Law on Credit Institutions, shareholders and related persons of shareholders. that person must not own more than 20% of the charter capital of a credit institution. Furthermore, there is no regulation that prohibits investors who invest in the banking sector from investing in other fields.
However, it is not difficult for shareholders or groups of shareholders to link and circumvent regulations to acquire a bank. The bankers can completely inject capital to the subsidiary by letting someone else name it. This is more likely to happen again when the market is active and the demand for loans of real estate businesses has shown signs of increasing sharply in recent years.
at Blogtuan.info – Source: cafebiz.vn – Read the original article here
