Are Mr. Tram Be's assets enough to pay off Sacombank's debt?

Tycoon Tram Be committed that during the implementation of the restructuring and bad debt settlement project of Sacombank, if the value of the assets securing the debt obligations is not enough, he will add other assets owned by him.

In mid-August 2015, when Mr. Tram Be was Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors of Sacombank, he voluntarily committed to "irrevocably and indefinitely authorize" the State Bank (SBV) all the shares that he and related persons held in Phuong Nam Bank, Sacocombank and the Sacombank shares after this bank completed the merger with Phuong Nam Bank.

Mr. Tram Be's "huge" mansion in Tra Vinh.

In particular, Mr. Tram Be also committed that during the implementation of the restructuring and bad debt settlement project of Sacombank, if the value of the assets securing the debt obligations is not enough, he will add other assets owned by him...

"Examining" the huge assets of tycoon Tram Be and his family

So what is the current assets of Mr. Tram Be's family?

First of all, regarding assets calculated by Sacombank shares, as of December 31, 2016 (at that time, Mr. Tram Be was still a member of Sacombank's Board of Directors), he held 27.65 million STB shares, accounting for 1.478% of charter capital.

At the same time, Mr. Tram Be's three children also held a large number of shares, including: Mr. Tram Trong Ngan owned 89.18 million shares, equivalent to 4.731%; Ms. Tram Thuyet Kieu owned 27.05 million shares, equivalent to 1.435% of charter capital and Mr. Tram Khai Hoa owned 33.35 million shares, equivalent to 1.769% of the bank's charter capital.

In addition, Mr. Le Trong Tri (Mr. Tram Be's son-in-law) also owns 2.07 million shares, equivalent to 0.11% of Sacombank's charter capital.

Thus, in total, Mr. Tram Be's family owns 9.523% of Sacombank's charter capital with 179.3 million STB shares. According to the trading value of STB shares in the most recent session (August 4), with a value of 12,700 VND/share, the assets of Mr. Be and related people at Sacombank are worth about 2,277 billion VND (in which, Mr. Be alone owns about 352 billion VND worth of STB shares).

Regarding BCI shares (Binh Chanh Construction Investment Joint Stock Company), Mr. Tram Be currently owns 2,657,343 shares, equivalent to 3.06% of charter capital. The closing price of BCI on August 4 was VND29,000/share, equivalent to Mr. Tram Be's stock assets at BCI being VND77 billion.

At BCI, Mr. Be's son, Mr. Tram Trong Ngan, also owns 9.3 million shares at BCI with a market value of VND272 billion.

Mr. Tram Be owns 15.2% of shares in the total charter capital of VND 590 billion of Trieu An Private General Hospital Joint Stock Company.

In addition to the two listed units as above, Mr. Tram Be also has 15.2% of shares in the total charter capital of 590 billion VND of Trieu An Private General Hospital Joint Stock Company (owner of Trieu An Hospital in Binh Tan District, Ho Chi Minh City) with revenue of over 300 billion VND, profit from 30 to 40 billion VND per year.

At the same time, Mr. Tram Be is currently the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Nhu Y Marble Joint Stock Company (Ham Giang Commune, Tra Cu District, Tra Vinh Province) with a charter capital of 500 billion VND. Here, he holds up to 82% of the shares. The main business lines of this company are mining of stones (gems, granite, marble...) and road and waterway transportation.

Mr. Be's daughter, Ms. Tram Thuyet Kieu, also holds 11% of the capital of Phuong Nam Gold, Silver, and Gemstone Trading Company with a charter capital of 450 billion VND.

Regarding real estate assets, Mr. Tram Be and his family currently own "golden" real estate projects in central areas of District 1, District 3, District 5 and projects with very large land funds in gateway areas such as: District 8, District 9, Thu Duc (HCMC), Long An, Can Tho...

In particular, Mr. Tram Be's "5-peak" mansion in Tra Vinh (Ham Giang commune, Tra Cu district) is located on a 30-hectare land, with many valuable ornamental plants worth billions of dong. This mansion has a noble design like a majestic palace and is decorated around it with items worth billions of dong such as a 10m radius chandelier ordered from Europe with gold-plated braces; a prehistoric mammoth skeleton...

Recently, after tycoon Tram Be was arrested, Mr. Duong Cong Minh, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Sacombank, suddenly spoke up about tycoon Tram Be's debt at this bank (in fact, the debts that Mr. Tram Be was responsible for resolving). According to Mr. Minh, with a principal debt of 35,400 billion VND, mortgaged with collateral worth 43,000 billion VND (including real estate collateral worth 33,000 billion VND and about 10,000 billion VND secured by stocks), this debt can be completely handled by Sacombank within 3 years.

However, to many banking and finance experts, there are many "strange points" surrounding Tram Be's debt at Sacombank.

First of all, as Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors of Sacombank, according to the Law on Credit Institutions, Mr. Tram Be is not allowed to borrow money from Sacombank. Therefore, the fact that he "took responsibility for resolving" these loans is because he "asked someone to stand in his name" to be able to borrow money from Sacombank? When were these loans made and were there any loopholes in the approval process?

Regarding this issue, Mr. Duong Cong Minh affirmed that most of these loans were incurred at Phuong Nam Bank and Mr. Tram Be had previously decided that Phuong Nam Bank would lend, so he had taken responsibility for settling these debts. The loan documents were also fully legal, in accordance with procedures and regulations.

Second, according to the provisions of the Law, the approval of Mr. Tram Be's loan application for his debts also has problems. Specifically, when appraising the loan application, the mortgaged property will only be valued at about 70% of the market value. Then the bank will lend about 70% of the appraised value. That is, the bank will only lend about 50% of the market value of the property that the customer has mortgaged. Therefore, with a loan of 35,400 billion VND, this secured asset must have a value of more than 70 trillion VND.

In addition, many experts also said that "taking" other assets of Mr. Tram Be to supplement if the value of the assets securing the debt obligations at Sacombank is not enough is not an easy problem...

According to Dan Viet Newspaper