The investigation agency has confirmed that it has received claims from 685 investors who have denounced the manipulation of the stock market committed by Quyet and accomplices and have claimed their losses.

Regarding the investors who bought AMD, ART, HAI, GAB and FLC, the investigation agency believes that there is no basis to handle the case because there is not enough evidence to define the losses suffered by investors from the behavior of ‘stock market manipulation’ committed by Quyet and accomplices, according to the appraisal of the Ministry of Finance (MOF) dated October 23, 2023.

As for the investors who bought ROS (FLC Faros construction company), the agency said it has taken investors’ statements and defined the damages in the case of "swindling people out of properties".

In the case of the 126 petitions from individuals denouncing the behavior of violating laws by the legal entities of FLC Group and FLC Quy Nhon Golf & Resort, and Trinh Van Quyet, former president of FLC Group, the agency has classified them and forwarded to heads of local investigation agencies to handle.

Regarding the 44 petitions from 33 individuals who signed contracts on buying bonds issued by FLC Group in December 2021 at VND10,000 per share and with the interest rate of 12 percent per annum, the investigation has concluded that this is a civil dispute and involved parties still cannot reach any agreement. And if no consent is reached, they can bring their cases to court.

Unusual shares

ROS, the share of the construction company FLC Faros, is considered the "strangest" share in the Vietnamese stock market. This was the factor that helped Quyet surpass Pham Nhat Vuong, president of Vingroup, to become the richest billionaires in the stock market in late 2016 and early 2017, if the asset valuation is based on the amount and prices of shares that Quyet was holding at that moment.

Just within several years of being on the stock market, ROS caused big upheavals. It was added to the VN30 Index (30 key shares) and witnessed a long succession of days of increases, which helped Quyet obtain assets worth tens of trillions of dong.

Soon after entering the bourse (HCM City Stock Exchange) on September 1, 2016, ROS immediately caught attention from investors. With the reference price of VND10,500 per share, which meant capitalization of VND4.5 trillion at that time, ROS prices kept escalating very rapidly.

Investors began feeling "something unusual" in October 2016, when the trading volumes of ROS were surprisingly high, with 50-70 million units transferred per trading session. The ROS price skyrocketed and reached the peak of VND100,000 per share just several months after it debut, or 10 times higher than the starting price one month before.

With the high ownership ratio, in mid-November 2016, Quyet became the wealthiest in the stock market with stock assets of VND33 trillion ($1.47 billion) for 290 million ROS shares. Le Thi Ngoc Diep, the wife of Quyet, was also added to the list of richest billionaires.

ROS peaked from September 2017 to November 2017. Investors were astonished when seeing the share of an unknown construction company increasing by 10 times, and then by another two times to VND215,000 per share in early November 2017.

ROS prices later continued to escalate to new peaks and helped Quyet’s total assets increase to VND50 trillion. However, he fell from the No1 position in the stock market, because Vingroup’s Vuong increased the number of VIC shares he held.

The noteworthy point is that even though Quyet’s assets increased continuously, he was not recognized by Forbes as a Vietnamese dollar billionaire.

Investigators found that from April 2014 to September 2016, Quyet and his accomplices falsified documents about the increase of charter capital from VND1.5 billion to VND4.3 trillion and appropriated VND3.62 trillion from securities investors.

From the beginning of 2018, ROS shares fell in price as its post-tax profit dropped sharply. Just within one year, the share price dropped by five times. By the end of 2020, ROS price had dropped to VND2,000 per share. The price increased again to VND15,000 per share in early 2022 before it dropped to VND2,500, and was forced to delist in September 2022.

Manh Ha