VietNamNet Bridge – A lot of well known brands which were once the “Vietnamese pride,” have disappeared from the market. Others still exist, but their founders have to leave the businesses to take other jobs as hired workers.

The big businesses that changed hands

In late August 2012, Tribeco, a HCM City based drink company, organized an extraordinary shareholders’ meeting to consult with the shareholders about the dissolution of the company.

Under the plan, Tribeco would get dissolved, while shareholders would receive 2300 dong for every share they hold, a very low level if noting that Tribeco’s shares were traded at 60,000 dong per share five years ago.

The “unhappy ending” of Tribeco, the brand name existing for 20 years, is foreseeable. It has been the “aiming point” of a foreign investor planning to take over Tribeco for the last few years. Meanwhile, with the bad management of the big shareholders of Tribeco, the company has been continuously incurring losses over the last many years. The stockholder equity has dropped to minus 126 billion dong by the end of July 2012.

As declared, from September, the operation of Tribeco Saigon would be taken over by Tribeco Binh Duong, a 100 percent Taiwanese owned company.

Habubank has completed necessary procedures to merge into the Saigon-Hanoi Bank (SHB) after a long period of incurring loss.

Answering the questions of the press about the governance method to be applied after the merger, Do Quang Hien, Chair of the Board of Directors of SHB, said the board of directors of SHB would remain unchanged.

As such, it’s obvious that the other members of the board of directors now do not have their voice in the management of the new SHB bank.

Habubank was once a strong brand name, well-known to every client, especially in the north. Therefore, the bank’s board of directors once shocked its shareholders when reporting the stockholder equity decrease to 195 billion dong and the bad debt ratio of 16.06 percent by February 2012.

Selling assets to pay debts

Bianfishco’s owner Dieu Hien, a well-known businesswoman in Mekong Delta, has reportedly sold stakes of the big seafood company to get money to pay debts, since she has no other solution.

On August 25, SHB made public the new business registration certificate of Bianfishco, which showed a very important information that SHB has become the founding shareholder, who now holds 50 percent of stakes of Bianfishco.

The Thai Hoa Vietnam Group has repeatedly received warnings from auditors about the short term debts and short term assets of the company. The prospect of the big group which once had impressive business results would still depend on the business result of the next quarters of the group, and on whether the group can get the support from banks by allowing to delay the payment or restructure debts.

Local newspapers recently have reported that Thai Hoa is considering selling some of its assets to pay debts. Meanwhile, some days ago, Thai Hoa stated that it has successfully negotiated with some banks on converting some short term debts into long term debts. The Chair of the Board of Directors reportedly has mortgaged his house at banks to be able to borrow money to rescue the group in the difficulties.

Since the real estate has got frozen, real estate developers rush to sell projects to get money to pay debts. The buyers in the deals are the banks, which lent to the real estate firms and now cannot take the money back, thus becoming the unwilling shareholders of the projects.

Manh Ha