The An Giang provincial People’s Committee has confirmed that it has received the document with the request and it has forwarded to the police to handle the case.

Prior to that, Loc Troi sent a document requesting the provincial authorities to revoke APEC card and impose exit suspension on Thuan, pointing out that Thuan took evasive actions and was uncooperative with the company in handing over work, and that there were signs of Thuan trying to go abroad to evade responsibility.

Loc Troi is one of the biggest enterprises in the agriculture service sector, with thousands of agriculture engineers working directly with 1 million farming households and millions of hectares of rice fields in Mekong Delta, the southeast region, and Central Highlands.

Over the last 30 years, Loc Troi has produced and joined forces with its partners to provide millions of tons of rice each year to the domestic market and for export. LTG has a large operation scale with total assets reaching VND11.9 trillion as of the end of the first quarter of 2024.

Since 2015, LTG has accounted for 20 percent of plant protection chemical market share. Since 2010, it has expanded its business into rice processing and trading and become a large agriculture service provider. 

The group strives to become a leading agriculture service group in Southeast Asia in the medium and long term.

However, the enterprise has recently reported losses and has been in debt to farmers, while there have been big changes in personnel. What is happening with the ‘big player’ in the agriculture sector?

On July 15, Loc Troi unexpectedly dismissed Thuan from the post of CEO of the company, who had been in the job for four years. Huynh Van Thon, chair of the board of director, is temporarily managing the company until a new CEO is appointed.

The 2023 financial report showed that Thuan has been working as LTG’s CEO since May 2020, the time when the new development period of the group began.

Thuan was born in 1970. He has a master’s degree on strategic management and had been working for many foreign companies until he worked for Loc Troi. In 2010-2015, he worked for the University of Medicine and Pharmacy Hospital.

From 2019 to the day of dismissal, Thuan worked for Loc Troi and did not hold Loc Troi shares. He was finance director, HR director, and deputy head of the division on agricultural supplies and food management.

Losses, debts

LTG’s CEO has been dismissed amid unsatisfactory business results.

The company got involved in a scandal of owing hundreds of billion of dong to 900 farmers in AnGiang and other localities in the 2023-2024 winter-spring crop. LTG said it is meeting difficulties in arranging cash flow from bank loans, while international clients have deferred their payments.

LGT had to sell rice at low prices and work with commercial banks and partners. On May 20, LTG cooperated with TPBank to finalize the payment for rice collections.

In the first quarter of 2024, LTG took a loss of VND96 billion, higher than the loss of the same period last year, because it had to advance money to farmers at the interest rate of zero percent, while it had to borrow money from banks at high interest rates. The high dollar prices also ate into the group’s profit.

LGT reported a 38 percent increase in revenue in 2023 to VND16.088 trillion. However, its post-tax profit was just VND16 billion, much lower than the committed profit of VND384 billion.

The board of directors explained that revenue from foodstuff and rice increased by 75 percent in 2023 thanks to countries’ high demand for food for storage, but LTG faced difficulties in capital access. 

Meanwhile, bank loan interest rates soared unexpectedly, the dong/dollar exchange rate fluctuated heavily, and domestic rice prices were uncontrollable.

After Thuan was dismissed, Loc Troi saw the resignation of some key managers, including a member of the board of directors and a member of the supervisory board

As of the end of the first quarter of 2024, LGT’s total debts had reached VND8.94 trillion, or three times higher than stockholder equity. LGT share price has dropped from VND22,000 to VND14,000 per share in the last three months.

Manh Ha