On Jan 16, SMBC announced its decision to terminate its capital alliance and reduce its ownership in the Vietnamese bank to below 5 percent.

Meanwhile, SMBC stated it will further enhance its growth strategy in Vietnam through cooperation with VPBank (VPB) and VPBank SMBC (FE Credit).

Prior to that, SMBC and VPBank signed a business partnership agreement in May last year,, and SMBC Consumer Finance acquired 49 percent of FE Credit’s stake in 2021.

SMBC said it puts high hopes on VPBank’s private  15 percent stake. The Law on Credit Institution stipulates that one strategic partner must not hold more than 5 percent of another credit institution. SMBC now can satisfy the requirement after divestment from EIB.

SMBC officially withdrew its capital from Eximbank after selling 132.8 million EIB shares to domestic investors on Jan 13. SMBC holds only 4.27 percent of Eximbank and no longer has to expose information if it wants to sell more EIB shares.

SMBC became Eximbank’s strategic shareholder in 2007 after spending $225 million to acquire 15 percent of Eximbank’s shares.

Eximbank has been bogged down in a power conflict among multiple groups of shareholders over many years. In 2019, SMBC withdrew its representative from Eximbank and began an investment in FE Credit and VPBank.

Thanh Cong group of Eximbank shareholders has also successfully divested all capital from the bank, totaling VND5 trillion.

In 2022, Eximbank witnessed many large share transfer deals with tens or hundreds of millions of shares sold, which marked unprecedented changes in shareholder structure.

In the latest news, Luong Thi Cam Tu, 43, who was a former member of Eximbank’s board of directors, has been appointed to the post of Eximbank board of directors’ chair in February 2022. Her predecessor was Yasuhiro Saitoh.

Eximbank found a ‘captain’ after large groups of shareholders chose Tu as the representative for the benefit of all involved parties.

Prior to that, from late 2015 to October 2022, Eximbank changed its presidents eight times.

Eximbank planned to convene an extraordinary shareholders’ meeting on Jan 16 to elect more members of the board of directors for 2020-2025. But the meeting could not take place because the attending shareholders represented only 53 percent of total voting shares.

Eximbank released a board of directors’ resolution on its 2023 business plan which aims for pre-tax profit of VND5 trillion.

Manh Ha