Tram Be – the mysterious tycoon

Mar 19th at 13:16

19-03-2013 13:16:58+07:00

Only billionaires can hold the controlling stakes of a commercial bank. Meanwhile, Tram Be and his family members are now the biggest shareholders of two banks – Sacombank and Southern Bank.

Southern Bank has surprised the public with its latest report about the ownership ratios of key shareholders in 2012. The report showed the increasingly high ownership ratios of Tram Be and his family members in the bank.

Be’s family now holds more than 20 percent of the bank’s stakes after Tram Trong Ngan, the son of Be, Deputy Chair of Southern Bank, has increased his ownership ratio from 1.85 percent to 4.42 percent, even though the bank has increased the chartered capital from VND3.2 trillion to VND4 trillion.

Ngan increased his ownership ratio in Southern Bank while another big shareholder – Becamex IDC – decided to sell all the 13.6 million shares, or 4.24 percent of the old chartered capital level.

After the moves, Be’s family members now have 20.14 percent of stakes, a bit higher than the proportions of shares being held by the second biggest shareholder – United Overseas Bank from Singapore.

Being a foreign strategic shareholder, but the Singaporean bank only holds 19.99 percent of stakes, far higher than the third biggest shareholder – Tropical Investments Vietnam which now holds 5.68 percent of shares.

Be has 8.36 percent of Southern Bank’s stakes, being the biggest individual shareholder in the bank, even though the big guy in early 2012 decided to focus on his works at Sacombank.

Be’s daughter, Tram Thuyet Kieu, now holds 7.36 percent of the bank.

Be’s family members have also been named as the biggest shareholders in Sacombank.

Tram Trong Ngan holds 48 million Sacombank’s shares, or 4.47 percent. The proportion has remained unchanged after Ngan two times failed to sell shares.

Tram Khai Hoa, the younger son of Be, is also a member of the board of directors of Sacombank, who is also a big shareholder.

Tram Thuyet Kieu, the daughter, holds 3.15 million shares, or 0.29 percent of total stakes.

How big are Be’s assets?

In the past, Be was known in the business circle as a big businessman. However, his name was not mentioned by local newspapers, partially because he was described as discreet and cautious, who did not like appearing before the public.

Be has become really well known after the campaign of a group of investors taking over Sacombank which took place in 2012.

However, even though having become more famous, the information about Be and his family members remain limited. Being the biggest shareholders of the two big banks in Vietnam, the tycoon has not been named in any lists of millionaires. Be was not named in the list of top 200 stock millionaires.

Tram Be was appointed as Deputy Chair of Sacombank in 2012, but he only held 115,000 Sacombank’s shares, or 0.01 percent of total capital.

Tram Be, born in 1959, was a businessman who invested in the wood industry for some 10 years, and then in the real estate sector with BCCI (the Binh Chanh Investment and Construction Company), the Trieu An Hospital, in the seafood sector and agriculture (Son Son Company) and Long Toan port group.

With the capital contributed to many banks and companies, Be and his family members are obviously the big influential tycoons. However, it’s difficult to could their assets, because most of the companies do not list their shares on the bourse.