VietNamNet Bridge – In principle, listed companies’ finance reports are the most important sources of information for investor to consider. However, the investors in Vietnam have learnt from their experiences that they should not believe the reports.

GAS, a gas trading corporation, has suffered the heavy fire from public opinion when its released finance reports showed extremely big differences.

In mid-July 2013, GAS announced the net profit the holding company gained in the first six months of the year reached VND6.2 trillion, an increase of 27 percent over the same period of the last year.

However, just one week later, the figure about the profit unexpectedly increased by VND800 billion.

The news has made investors puzzled. A lot of them hurried to sell GAS shares after the news about the profit of VND6.2 trillion, thus making the GAS share price down by five percents after several trading sessions.

And the investors now feel regret their decision on selling stakes after hearing that the actual profit was much higher. Meanwhile, the GAS share prices have increased again on the good news.

In fact, GAS is not the only listed company which released wrong information. However, GAS has become the aiming point of the heavy criticism recently because the difference in the figures was too big.

A lot of companies have given investors a start when reporting different figures about their profits. In late July 2013, PVS, an oil and gas technique service company, stated that the holding company made a profit of VND438 billion. However, just two weeks later, the figure was corrected, and the actual profit was just equal to over 50 percent.

The different reports made investors feel insecure. In both GAS and PVS, the holding companies were the biggest money makers of the groups. In GAS, for example, the holding company makes up 80 percent of the total turnover annually.

The wrong information which leads to wrong investment decisions has made investors lose big money. Besides, the inside shareholders may make the corrupt use of the reports to seek profits.

Tran Anh Dao, Deputy General Director of the HCM City Stock Exchange, has advised investors to keep cautious when referring to the information exposed by listed companies.

Hoang Thach Lan, a senior executive of MHBS securities company, related a story about how a real estate firm listing its shares at the HCM City Stock Exchange cheated both the securities company and investors.

The company deliberately released the information which was quite different from the real business result of the company. The company’s general director confirmed with Lan that his company made a profit of VND26 billion in the quarter. However, in the official finance report released later, the company took a loss of VND50 billion.

The general director, when asked about the difference of the figures, explained that he just “estimated” the profit, while the “estimates” could be different from the real result.

In the case of GAS, according to Dao, the difference of the figures is too big – VND800 billion, or 10 percent of the profit. However, this could not be considered as a “violation”, because GAS only spontaneously “estimated” the profit of VND6.2 trillion. However, Dao said the stock exchange would keep an eye over the case.

NCDT