Many questions about bank takeover deal remain unanswered
08-11-2012 12:51:24+07:00
Many questions about bank takeover deal remain unanswered
While the “fat cat” Dang Van Thanh and his family members have withdrawn from Sacombank (Code: STB), a big volume of Eximbank’s shares has been traded on the market. Who is behind the transactions?
Sacombank, one of the biggest commercial banks in Vietnam, has finally found a new President – Pham Huu Phu, who represents the capital contributed by Eximbank (Cose: EIB) – big shareholder of Sacombank.
However, it seems that the plan to take over Sacombank has not come to an end yet. In the market, about 100 million of Sacombank’s shares were traded in October and November, which is really a mystery to many investors.
A lot of questions have been raised about the deals. Is there someone who is attempting to jump into Sacombank? Who will tale the seat that Thanh has left? Is this the “second circle” of a takeover deal?
In order to collect the 100 million of Sacombank’s shares (10 percent of the bank’s total shares), one would have to spend 2 trillion dong, a huge sum of money.
The noteworthy thing is that the time when Sacombank shares were sold it coincided with the time when Eximbank’s shares were traded, worth trillions of dong.
On November 1 alone, 19.5 million Eximbank shares were successfully transferred, worth 300 billion dong.
In the previous trading session, Eximbank shares were also collected by some secret investors who spent 560 billion dong for 36 million shares.
As such, in October 2012 and the first day of November, 114 million of Eximbank shares were transferred under the mode of negotiations (with no orders marched on the stock market), worth 1.8 trillion dong, or nearly 10 percent of the share’s capitalization value.
The part of the iceberg under water
Dang Van Thanh, the founder of Sacombank and former President of the bank, now holds four percent of the bank’s shares only, while his son Dang Hong Anh holds 3.46 percent.
Thanh and his relatives have gradually quit the bank he has devoted to over the last 20 years. The new faces have also turned up. The inspectors also finished their working session at the bank on October 5.
However, investors still raise questions about the transparency in Sacombank and Eximbank share transactions.
What most interests people, is whether the takeover of Sacombank violates the laws. Investors also want to know where the money used to take over the bank comes from. However, the questions remain unanswered.
The commitments by the Governor of Vietnam--when answering the questions before the National Assembly in August 2012 regarding the results of the inspection tours to some commercial banks relating to Sacombank case have not been fulfilled.
It is obvious that in order to collect 51 percent of Sacombank’s shares as stated by Eximbank, one would need a huge sum of money.
The process of taking over Sacombank lasted for a long time, during which the prices of Sacombank shares fluctuated so strongly. However, nearly all the investors on the bourse were not officially informed about the moves by the big shareholders. As such, small investors have suffered due to the lack of information.
While Vietnamese stock investors made investment decisions based on rumors, not official information, the watchdog agencies still kept silent. Only two weeks after the information about Sacombank takeover deal was exposed, did the State Securities Commission released a decision to punish the institutions and individuals who committed wrongdoings when buying Sacombank’s shares some months ago.
vietnamnet
